Moonlight Vigilante
by WiseAbsol
Summary: Acting as both a judge and an executioner, a vigilante known as Tsukuyomi punishes the criminals of Kanto's capital, Viridian City. His true identity and the events that led to his rise are unknown to most…but the road Mewtwo has taken along the way has been less than kind. A character study of Mewtwo, which, among other things, features him becoming a lover and a father.
1. The Vagabond and His Heart

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Story Information:

_**Title:**__Moonlight Vigilante__. _

_**Summary: **__Acting as arbiter and executioner, an entity known as Tsukuyomi punishes the corrupt that thrive in Kanto's capital, Viridian City. His true name and the events that led to his rise are unknown to most…but the path has been less than blessed…. _

_**Language:**__ English. _

_**Rating:**__ Fiction Rating M, for mature audiences no younger than sixteen years of age._

_**Genres:**__ Hurt/Comfort and Crime. _

_**Category:**__ Games – Pokemon._

_**Created:**__ Sunday, July 27, 2008 / 1:42:14 p.m._

_**Finished:**__ Sunday, September 28, 2008 / 5:37:36 p.m._

_**Total Pages:**__ 104._

_**Music Theme:**__"Fallen" by Sarah McLachlan._

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**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokemon, which belongs to: _Nintendo; the Pokemon Company; Creatures; GAME FREAK; TV Tokyo; ShoPro; Jr. Kikaku; Shogakukan Production Co, Ltd.; Satoshi Tajiri; and Ken Sugimori. _These companies and the creators rightfully own the franchise. As well, I do not own Mary Chapin Carpenter's lyrics to her song "Ten Thousand Miles." Please note that I don't write this story to infringe on copyrights or to earn money; this is merely for the purpose of entertainment among individuals who have similar interests, and who desire new adventures for the characters they love. If asked by supervising authorities, this story would be taken down at request.

**Author's Note: **So here we are at my twentieth fanfiction on this site, and I have to say, I'm happy it's this one. Truth be told, I've never told anyone much about this story that's been hidden in the depths of my mind. It has always been a special plot, a private tale stirring in the darkness that I seem to channel so often. As some of you know, in the past I have written numerous examples of mature content, always attempting to give respect where it is due, and use tact when necessary to uphold personal style. In each of these incidences I was ready to take on what I was writing; I was old enough and mature enough to handle it. However, up until recently I was unable to do the same with this fanfiction piece, not because of a lack of research and understanding, but because of inexperience. I did not have enough faith in myself to give it the heart it deserved. Presently though, certain people have infused me with confidence: thank you to Nicole, Kay, Leslie, and Aeris especially. Your encouragement and enthusiasm is more motivating than you realize; this lengthy tale is the result of your kind words and my grueling labors.

Warnings, of course, should be mentioned now. Moonlight Vigilante is rated M for graphic violence, sexual scenes, swearing, drug use, character death, as well as themes relating to Nazi idealism. I do not suggest that anyone under the age of sixteen read this; and those who might chose to do so should regard this fanfiction with some level of advanced maturity for their age group. At any rate, as this is one of the longer works I've done for a one-shot, I recommend resting one's eyes occasionally. I hope you all enjoy Moonlight Vigilante…it means more to me than anything else I've written before it.

Oh yeah – and a happy birthday to Dark Magician Girl Aeris!

**P.S.**: Apparently this site only allows up to 30.5k an entry, meaning that this story has to be split into smaller sections. Irking as that is it can't be changed, so I will do the best I can to limit disrupting the flow. However, I would greatly appreciate it if readers would still treat this as a one-shot and _please review at the end of the story_! To those of you who do, thank you in advance.

**Edit, 6-2-09: **At the suggestion of some of my friends, I am splitting this story into nine chapters for reader convenience. I would still ask that you review at the end, however, if that is not too much trouble. Thanks.

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MOONLIGHT VIGILANTE:

_**Monday, September 6th of 2012 / 2:46 a.m.:**_

_Within the depths of the overcast sky above Kanto's Viridian City, a sinewy creature curled in fetal position within a sphere of azure light, the glowing orb hidden among the smoky vapors of the gathering rainstorm. The mists around the flawless barrier swirled with shades of corn gold and pale silver, derived from the numerous lights bursting upwards from the metropolis and downwards from the half-moon setting in the dark, star-strewn firmament above. Occasionally a gust of wind would carry the globe along a new route, and out of the chilly fog would arise stone shadows, glimmering glass, and the occasional flickering red light of a beacon as the towering buildings of Man scraped the underbelly of the heavens; yet they never penetrated as far as the wandering one could if he desired. True, humans had found ways to travel amongst heights far above any mountain's reach, but they did not do so with ease – they defied nature with their airplanes and their rockets, with the incredible technology they wove with their sharp minds and their dexterous hands. Yet it was what came of the strangest race, this creativity and an unnatural desire to control all they could with whatever means necessary. Only one other of the living was odder even than they were, and he hung beyond their reach like their God, almost appearing to sleep within the shell he had formed around himself. _

_However, the drifter was acutely aware of his surroundings despite having his fierce eyes closed – he was merely in a state of recovery from the recent hours, acting upon minimal action as he healed the wounds he'd received in the battles prior to his flight within the night. His pale body glowed faintly as blood dripped from his limbs, pooling in a small, perfectly circular puddle of liquid crimson at the bottom of the blue orb. The red fluid bubbled and hissed upon contact with the curved walls of psychic energy, filling the sphere with the strong metallic scent of copper. The healing one paid the stench no attention; he had grown inured to the odor long ago. As he opened his eyes to slits, he watched as the long slashes across his arms, thighs, and sides sealed shut with a bright red hue, as if they were being cauterized. It burned just as much as being branded with scorched metal, this process of quick mending, and though the injuries faded to nothing more than faint scars among ashen fur, he could still feel the pain within his flesh. Exhaustion was swift to pervade his body afterwards, and now that the convalescence was complete, he could return to his dwelling place for sleep. The clouds could wash him clean of his own blood, erasing fully the evidence of his mortality…._

_Without conscious thought the being unfurled, his shield bursting like a popped soap bubble before his limbs stretched to touch its edges. He flew upwards at an angle that might cause other beings to lose blood-flow to the brain or break the vertebrae of their necks, but he drifting at a slow pace, unhurried and wishing to savor the cool wetness of the clouds around him. His light fur soon became soaked with condensation, and icy droplets rolled down his form, which shivered in response: he did not do well with extreme temperature shifts, but he paid the minimal shaking no mind. It was yet another thing he had grown used to in the past few years…. Eventually, the vapors before him began to thin, with breaks into the open air visible before his sharp gaze. Like a dolphin over the surface of the waves, he broke through the celestial ocean and soared into the frigid, thin air above the forming rainclouds. There he spun in a slow circle, calculating the position of the stars and moon, learning both the time and directions of the compass from his observations. It could not be later than three in the morning at the very most, and now that he had discovered the precise position of the lunar body, he could derive the way back to his home. He skimmed above the fog without rushing – there was no need to worry about being spotted, for he was higher than most nosey helicopters or birds dared to fly, and even if someone did catch sight of him, they would dismiss his form as a trick of the moonlight. His coloring being of the shades of the silver glow and the darkness of a thundercloud, he could vanish into the twilight with ease as if he was a living part of it, an animal born of heaven's womb. Although, if one was close enough to spy his shape, he or she would undoubtedly think him to be a monster of hell, though his tongue was hardly forked and he carried no trident._

_As he reached the northeastern quadrant of the city, the outskirts edging into the Routes of the trainers who participated in the annual Indigo League, as well as into the forests that led to the Town of Stone, the wanderer began to descend, letting the rush of the fall overtake him. The tops of buildings raced up to meet him, and with a few practiced movements of an experienced skydiver, he thrust himself out of harm's way. As he began to regain control of the dive, directing himself onto the familiar paths to his dwelling, his acute senses began to detect things previously unnoted over the roar of the wind and the soft hues of the sky. Sounds - such as the sirens of police cars - arose from distant streets; along with other noises like the babbling of night-crawling humans and occasion shouts, of glass bottles being poured into dumpsters from behind nearby bars and restaurants, of tires sloshing through puddles, of so many footsteps hitting the pavement. In some places, the sounds of urban music arose, catching in the mind, but such fleeting tunes were soon lost amongst the symphony of city life. After a mere month one would come to tune out the orchestra, but always an occasional off beat in the percussion could make one pay attention once more and lose their deafness. The same went for the scents in this place, and the tastes associated with them: of spicy and baked foods and exotic drinks, of rotting garbage and sewer water and cut grass, of asphalt and tar and vehicle exhaust, of flowers and fragrances and human odors. After time, again one became numb to these things until something fresh, or perhaps not-to-fresh, arose and cut through the normal monotone. Yet the wanderer himself had no such immunity – he could not afford to be blinded in such a way._

_He flew onwards, keeping to the shadows where the illumination from the neon advertisements and public lighting could not touch him. To one unfamiliar with the layout of the city, the numerous buildings could blend together until one lost their way: for if they were not made of brick, they were made of concrete, or windowpanes, or even metal and wood, each of a similar shape and of mathematically determined proportions. Architecture at times could vary, but in the dark the differences became subtle unless the structure was glaringly diverse from its surroundings. Yet the being knew where he was going. As he swept past the wealthy companies and shops, the streets alight with golden lamps faded into the paths of the centralized park, the walkways vacant in the late hour. Many residents were asleep in their skins now, for those who stayed up late could no longer persevere, and those who awoke before the dawn had not yet been alerted to the time by their alarm clocks. This dead hour, this lull in a supposedly sleepless capital, was perfect for a nocturnal creature such as himself…though he had a life in the day that must too be attended to. How fortunate for him that he was a dedicated insomniac, well used to only a handful of hours a sleep each night. He would never get anything done otherwise._

_Soon the treetops began to vanish beneath him as well, and he slowly wove his way to the apartment complexes that clustered in the corner of Viridian City. He found his way to the one he sought with ease – the three identical buildings, with their interior sides facing one another in a triangle shape without corners, towered above the neighboring structures, which consisted mostly of shops dedicated to supplying departing trainers with items to aid the children in their journeys. The light was duller here, and the sounds hushed, for this place truly slumbered in a way the downtown area would never know. He descended to the roof of the west-facing one, his toes soon brushing down into the long grasses of a makeshift meadow. For the most part, the vast speck of nature, cradled high above the actual earth, was a grove of cattails and wildflowers, but among the soil were clusters of herbs and some carefully grown tealeaf bushes. It was a decorative place really, along with an area of relaxation and recreation; it could not sustain anyone as far as food went. No, like others he needed to purchase his own sustenance and drink, as well as pay bills for water and electricity. At the very least, there was no rent; the apartment of the floor directly below, along with this meadow, was solely his, bought and paid off years ago. With a sigh, he travelled through the grasses, careful not to trample any of the precious plants, and unlocked the door leading into his dwelling with a casual twitch of his wrist. The telekinetic key did its work, and the door opened wide to allow his entrance. _

_Closing the barrier and locking it behind him, he stepped down the concrete ramp, feeling a rug beneath his feet when he stepped before yet another door. This one was needed no undoing – it slid open beneath his palm, and once more he became bathed in the dull glow of the outside as he stepped into the view of the glass wall looking out into the scenic world. Rain began to splatter against the crystalline surface as he padded across the mats that covered the hardwood floor, mindful not to trip over them. He paused however when he came to the exiting door…there was a pale, flickering light coming from beneath it. His ears caught the low sounds of the television from one of the rooms beyond, and with a silent sigh he slid open the door, passing the storage room, his office, and the dining area in moments. To his left were the greeting hall and the entranceway to the elevator…and to his right was the living room, containing an iron-grey sofa along with an entertainment center - complete with stereos and capable of crunching any type of electronic device hooked up to it. The wide television now illuminated the room brightly with newsreels, with the anchorpersons of V.C.L.E., Viridian City Local Events, reporting incidences that had been born in the last few hours. He shut the channel off with another flicker of telekinesis, ridding himself of a source of ruined night-vision. Through the curtain of the window behind the setup, the soft glow of the moon broke through the clouds, casting a ghostly light across the one who had been responsible for the "on" status of the machine._

_The girl was no more than five years old, her small body curled up under a sienna blanket. Her tiny hand clutched the remote firmly, and as he stepped around the sofa, he gently pried the device from her grasp. He regarded her wordlessly, both amused and disappointed in her actions: she was not supposed to have stayed up so late while he was gone, and it certainly could not be normal for her to be doing so to watch the late night news. He would have found the matter more acceptable had some silly cartoon been on, and yet she watched – and he suspected she comprehended – a show that oftentimes discussed ongoing court cases and matters of gang violence in the area. Though he understood her motives, he still felt worry gather in his chest…he did not wish her to be scarred by life at so young of age, although she already carried wounds he could never heal. Yet those thoughts aside, he had to admire how much she apparently cared; it proved to him countless times their bond. Clucking his tongue once, he gathered her frame, still soft and round with youth, into his arms. She was becoming heavy, he thought, although he had lifted and carried twice her current weight before. Still, she was growing quickly…it had not been so long ago that she had been a newborn in his arms, blinking up at him with perfect purity in her wide gaze. He cradled her closer, musing on that…within two decades he would no longer be needed by her – though, no matter how she protested, he would do everything within his power to protect her regardless._

_The carpet beneath his feet bordered on the tiles of the enclosed kitchen area, which he passed by, coming to the first of the two bedrooms in the condominium. It was a decently sized space, ten feet by twelve feet in length and width, giving the child room to breathe and play. He carefully stepped around the clothes hamper by the slid open door, and avoided crushing the pencils and papers strewn across the floor. The bed, covered in thin blankets, sheets, and lush pillows, was placed in the far left corner of the room; across from it was a desk, which had children's books in messy piles across its surface, and a chair pulled out from the empty space beneath. The closet, thankfully, was closed – he dared not view what type of state it was in. Psychically he cleaned the room up, placing the books on their shelves, piling the colored-on papers into a neat stack, putting the drawing utensils in their proper container. She had clearly not gone to sleep when he had tucked her into bed earlier, the little fox. He scooped up the three stuffed toys she had, placing them on her bed as companions in her dreaming: the teddy bear, the fire dog, and the electric mouse watched over her. Fortunately, he did not need to try to balance her against him in order to peel aside the covers – they were already thrown open, awaiting the creature they were to surround and keep warm. He set the little one against the bottom sheet, her head lolling into the pillows as he brought the other covers over her shapeless, healthy form. She curled up more comfortably immediately, her arms near her face, her small, pale hands curled into loose fists. He couldn't resist smiling as he sat down beside her huddled form, watching her sleep; she was very precious in this state, unfettered by curiosity and mischievousness. Not that she was a troublesome girl: she was polite, inquisitive, and eager to make him laugh…but like any child, she had her moments of bad temperament. She had inherited fierce pride and a quick temper from her father, and most certainly would be a capricious vixen when she matured into an adult. The wanderer, home now, could already tell she would be quite alluring in both spirit and in body…she took after her mother in so many ways._

_Sometimes it was hard for him to believe that she was _his_ daughter._

_After all, she showed no signs of being a hybrid of two contrasting species. She appeared human in every way, possessing no mutations that would expose her half-breed traits. Yes, although the sun had graced her, her skin was pale beneath her light-blue pajamas and white socks…but albinos of humanity had far less melatonin than she. Yes, her hair was of a rare, creamy chicken egg or sand dune brown color, with some streaks that were almost white and even lilac in some odd lightings…but again, this was not outside the realm of possible human features. He supposed the paleness of her eyelashes and eyebrows - as well as her inevitable future pubic hair - was unusual…but still, nothing of her features declared to the world her unique inheritance. She had ten fingers and ten toes, a small nose, a pink mouth, two ears, the scar of her navel, and wide eyes – which were a light lilac color close to grey. She had no tail, no strange ridges, no alien features when concerning her immature sex…she was, as far as others were concerned, a perfectly normal little girl. Even her blood had retained a recognizable type. The only thing that might give her away was the unique coding of her genes, blended with the essence of two different races…and, of course, the psychic traits she'd inherited from her pokemon father. Hence the mats on the studio floor: already he was training her, guiding her, making certain she could use her abilities as she wished and could defend herself from others who might seek to harm her. Yet while rare, humans could possess such extrasensory abilities, and for a medic to check her DNA was barely within the realm of believable thought, so he was not concerned with hiding her from the world. He allowed her to roam where she desired in the daytime, provided she stay with her friends - the children of the nearby residents – and within the area where he could watch over her with his omniscient senses. If she ever strayed outside of the zone he could observe, she knew he would follow and the consequences then…but so far, she hadn't shown any interest in going beyond the recreational park cradled within the apartment buildings. She was, after all, only five years ago; able and intelligent, yes…but still too young to think of darting far away from her parent...he hoped._

_The father wordlessly caressed her slightly curly hair then, brushing a few wavy locks from her face…and he spoke for the first time in hours to the young one who held his heart in her small hands:_"…Whatever shall I do with you, my Mitsuki?"

_Closing his now soft eyes for a moment, he slowly stood, straightening his muscles as he did so. Knots were coiled tight in his shoulders and back, previously unnoticed but now so clear after having hunched over in bad posture to sit with the child. He grimaced, realizing that a hot shower and a stretching session would be the only certain way he could undo the strain by his own power. As he walked away, letting his daughter slumber on, he rested a hand of the sliding door, about to step out and roll it shut, when a soft voice from behind made him pause. "...Papa?"_

_He turned around, regarding the speaker with a gentle expression few others had ever seen._ "Go to sleep, Mitsuki…you have been wakeful long enough tonight."

_His daughter didn't appear to pay attention. She spoke up again, her voice heavy with drowsiness, "…They talked about you on the news, papa…you got rid of another bad guy…?"_

_The father spun around fully, walking over to her and sitting down again. His tri-fingered paw lightly brushed her face…she peered at him from beneath heavy lids, both trust and admiration glowing in her eyes._ "I did," _he murmured,_ "I do hope you refrain from boasting that to others, however."

_She blinked slowly. "…That's papa's and my secret…I don't tell."_

_He smiled wider, and leaned down, kissing her silky hair shortly before pulling back._ "Good girl…now please, get some rest. We will discuss your punishment for staying up past your curfew in the morning."

_That startled her further into wakefulness, and her voice rushed out in an upset babble. "Papa…! No! I wa-want to go with Tia and Cody to the festival! Don't make me stay home!"_

_Yet then the girl saw him smirking from humor, and seemed to realize he was smothering laughter at her distress. She scowled and pouted, huddling up under her blankets further to get away from his sight, upset that she had been made to appear a gullible child. The drifter merely stroked her exposed hair again and murmured for her not to fret, and whispered for her to go to sleep once more. Again he began to depart, and out of the corner of his eye saw her pale face peeking out from under the covers at him. He paused, waiting for her to say what was on her lips…she spoke in mere moments as he had predicted: "That was mean, papa…but I'll forgive you if you sing me to sleep."_

_With all her proper speech, a mannerism picked up from her father, she was still a young child longing for her lullaby. The wanderer crossed over to her desk, finding her small music box, which he had crafted when she was yet growing within the womb. It was a trinket made of polished silver and lavender-tinted glass, the light purple panes upon each side showing the inner mechanics of how the piece worked, with the ghostly threads of ivy and blooming flowers across the transparent surfaces. The silver corners and its base were also smooth, the metal having swirls of deep blue, aqua green, even faint hues of garnet. Lastly, the top cover was decorated like the glass, in a scene showing two birds flying within a peaceful sky, the image of the sun or full moon behind their wings. He gently pressed the button on the lip of the front edge that would begin the process of playing the tune in mind; the song had been her mother's favorite, and now was Mitsuki's as well. It was a great shame that it couldn't be the woman responsible for Mitsuki's existence that would sing the child to sleep, but his baritone voice - as contrasting as it was to the original singer's - was pleasant enough to the ears. He only knew how to sing this one melody and these few lyrics…but it was enough to give Mitsuki comfort, as well as a vague reminder of the woman she had never met. The introduction measures, filled with strings and piano tones, passed quickly. He then picked up the bittersweet words, which reminded him always of the time when they had lingered in the air, saying a silent goodbye between him and Mitsuki's mother, his Anne, more final than any words could have been between them…._

"…'Fare thee well / My own true love / Farewell for a while / I'm going away / But I'll be back'…."

_His voice wavered on the words, but he continued,_ "Though I go ten-thousand miles…,"_and as he sang on, images began to accompany the words as Mitsuki drifted off. The memories were from well before her birth, eternal and precious to his mind. He knew he was incapable of forgetting those long months even if he had ever bore a desire to shed that part of his past…it was stained upon his being, traces of it in everything he did in the present and would do in the future. It seemed incredible to him that a mere human, and a female at that, could have had any impact upon the manner in which he had lived his life, for he had forsaken her race as trash once upon a time. Yet that was no longer the case…those cynical views had long since been altered irrevocably._

_Yes, Mewtwo wondered in the murk, how could he not change, after finding something whole and true in an otherwise chaotic life…? How…?_

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	2. Upon a Midsummer's Night

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Thursday, July 21st of 2005 / 10:32 p.m.:

The moon was full and stained yellow in the warm midsummer's night, the lunar light doing nothing to ease the moist heat in zephyr's breath. In the distance, the bell of a clock tower tolled out that hour, bellowing in its deep voice that it was half past ten in the gloom. The gray of the evening had fled over an hour before, and the clear sky – devoid of stars due to the artificial lights of the metropolis – varied in shades of black, dark olive, and mingled burned gold and maroon. As the ringing of the goliath brass faded in the air, the softer sounds hidden beneath it arose once again. Crickets chirped in hopes of finding insect romance, and cicadas and fireflies droned their own melancholy notes. The heart of Viridian City's centralized park was otherwise silent, with many of its inhuman inhabitants slumbering unfettered in their dens. At the same time, those of the species who usually wandered through its paths now traveled to new destinations. Even the habitual runners were departing for safer ground on which to jog, for although they were fit and naturally more alert to their surroundings, they knew instinctively that this makeshift wilderness was not an area to be caught in after dark. Such beliefs were perfectly reasonable: those akin to strays and hunters now wandered through the trees, and those who had lost their senses to drink or drugs also called this place their sanctuary for the shadows its landscape birthed. As a result, the fools who walked within the "tame" wilderness after sundown could easily become prey…and the risk only mounted as the globe of the moon fully rose and began to set.

Currently, there was one such stalker trailing behind a member of the frail, unthinking pedestrians…but he did not do so out of a lust for carnality or bloodshed. Fortunately for the woman he followed, he shadowed her out of intellectual interest and from pangs of nostalgia: it had been a few years shy of a decade since he had last seen her, and though she had changed beyond what he might have recognized, he knew her to be the same female from seven years ago. Though her aural signature, the spiritual force of all living beings, had shifted in personality and tones, the fibers of it were identical, along with the feel of its inner core. When he had returned to this city a couple months prior, he had automatically set about discovering where those he was acquainted with – however briefly – were, to avoid contact with the ones who could damage his reclusive lifestyle. He had been satisfied to find that either many of them had left the capital, or had their bones buried in the hallowed grounds of cemeteries…and those who still existed were simple enough to shun. Though he had been wary of this regression to the place that could be called his hometown, he had known he could not avoid it forever. "All roads lead home," was the saying, correct? He had too many ties to the metropolis in memory, and though they were not particularly happy ones, they were binding nonetheless. Besides…he had been curious to see if anything had changed since he had last visited Kanto. Fortunately – or perhaps unfortunately – little had. The atmosphere of the land was the same, still a merging of a light exterior with dark undertones that no other nation could fully match: not Jhoto, not Orre, not Sinnoh, not the Sevii Islands, not….

He pushed the ruminations aside, and mused that the region of his unnatural birth was undoubtedly the one he took the most solace in, threats and all. He supposed that was no different from how any citizen would feel when wandering across the planet: enjoying the new aspects of alien cultures and ethnic peoples and stunning scenery, but deep inside always longing for familiarity. Could any person ever feel whole living outside of their motherland, no matter how harsh that motherland might be? Would they ever feel complete or feel they belonged outside of the borders of their own nativity? Perhaps some of foreign birth could become inured to a different country and take joy in it…but that path was not for him. Kanto had called for him to return, and so he had come; and ultimately he had returned to its capital, the city of his youth. Very little had changed, and that was gratifying when it came to soothing the yearnings for the better memories of the past, uncommon as they might be when concerning him. So now he followed one of the links in the chain of events that made up his abandoned life: for though she was a small link – his remembrance of her scarcely more than a handful of fragmented moments – she was still a piece of what once was. Furthermore, she was yet tangible. He had not thought to cut her away as he had everything else: Giovanni Rocketto, the man's gang, and the servitude they'd forced upon him; his affairs with his clone companions, and the related small group of humans; as well as the few places he had built into homes. She remained because of a fluke in reasoning and from unexpected circumstances, a thread that while nearly insignificant existed when all other ties had been severed.

As a result, though her pull was frail, he was ultimately drawn her way; there was little else to compete with her.

Like any stalker, he had naturally researched as much of her personal information as he dared, still allowing himself the reassurance of having a mere casual interest. The basic profile that he had unintentionally memorized ran through his mind as he trailed behind her, jumping between the tops of the tall metal lampposts lighting the stone path below without a sound. The woman, Anne Nakamura, twenty-four years of age, was a recent graduate from the city's private liberal arts college of Verona University. She had left the teaching institution with a Major in Small Business and a Minor in Biochemistry, with which she had worked with her associates to create a small shop in the downtown area. There they sold scented products, including candles, bath-and-body works, and perfumes, along with music soundscapes to pair with the soothing fragrances. The place had remained standing despite the corporate counterparts in the area, with large thanks due to females desperate to fight the dominating huge franchises which threatened to swallow their competition whole. Ideally, the satiating would make the wealthy even richer while their products invaded homes. However, the process of takeover would only serve to eliminate the character of the metropolis, making it into another faceless town with no promise of unique encounters and discoveries. Of course, the feminine crowd could only do so much; in truth, Anne's little business persevered through private funding – the familial branch she belonged to kept it afloat when times were rough. Currently, the shop was doing well for itself, and was undergoing some renovations as its attendants expanded its space.

Yet while such information was fascinating in its own mild way, it was scarcely was what the drifter cared to know. She owned her own business, yes…but beyond that? As far as the public was concerned, the rest was irrelevant…but to him it mattered. As he watched her walk down the path, he mused onwards: her name consisted of both Hebrew and Japanese origin, the ethnicities of which blended nicely in her flesh, but which would undoubtedly clash when it came to religious beliefs. It was an unsurprising thing then that she was an agnostic, a neutrality most likely to have developed once her parents – who were together despite matters of faith – had tried to involve her in their debates. Since she showed no signs of social scars when it came to her family, he doubted the arguments had ever been heated…she had simply chosen the easiest path that would not arouse anyone's ire. Her open-minded tolerance was something he was pleased with, for he had dealt with people whose edicts had marked him a demon that needed to be vanquished. Religion could make the members of Man into monsters…the holy wars of the past were proof of it. Shaking his head of those thoughts, he rested his gaze on her again, hearing the leaves of the trees near him whisper their green song. What else was there…? She had an older brother…and oh yes, there was _that_, wasn't there?

Anne Nakamura was handicapped.

Her alabaster cane, only just snowier than her skin, darted out at the sidewalk like a striking, white viper. The noise of its head clicking against the stone beneath it carried in the air, the sound of a clock's second hand ticking away the minutes removed from the numbered face. The motion was rhythmic, done with precision and seven years of experience behind it. The woman had learned how to decipher the faint intonations of the strikes, along with what was beneath them from the give of the ground, and in doing so she found her way. Beneath the cane's beat the stalker could make out her voice mumbling, soft and in step as well: she was counting her paces, gauging her distance, the act in itself indicating that she had walked along these paths enough times to be confident of not going astray even after the dark had fallen. Had she been held up somewhere, he wondered, or was this a routine of her own making? Did she purposefully wait until it was late enough in the evening that she would have less of the living and their possessions to obstruct her way? Did she fully understand how mad such ritual gambits were, her blind strolls through a realm that could hide her festering corpse for over a week before her body was stumbled upon? She was not only blind; she was possessed by deceptively lulled schizophrenia! Even those with unmarred eyes were sane enough not to wander through a vacant park at night. After all, besides him, there were no witnesses in the area whom would see a crime against her; it was almost as if she was silently asking someone to help her commit suicide.

She did not strike him as one being seduced by the sweet misery of depression, however, nor did she seem such a blatant masochist. She was merely taking upon herself dangerous risks, and acting as if fate would not step in a deal her a fatal hand of cards. Yet the metaphorical deck was already stacked against her, and counted by her faceless opponents: it was only a frail matter of luck that kept her from harm. Yet luck was a fickle force, easy to bend or loose entirely. Though many spoke highly of her, Mewtwo believed the cosmic lady to be no better than a whore without honor, selling herself to those who would foolishly be taken in by her charm…and then, when her partners were least suspecting of treachery, she would turn on them with intents ranging from personal humiliation to homicidal violence. To put faith in her was to put faith in a rickety building with a weak foundation: the structure would collapse upon you at any moment from something as light as a breeze.

Without any warning the Nakamura woman suddenly came to a halt, her white cane hanging listless from her hand before her. From his perch atop the lamppost, the stalker tilted his feline head at her: why had she paused? She was incredibly still in that moment under the electrical glow, the only movement being that of her shoulder-length, almost straight, light brown hair, which was being ruffled in the slight night breeze. Her person did not even show signs of involuntary twitching beneath her cream-colored jeans and white blouse, although it seemed to him the tiny, pale hairs across her arms were standing up. Slowly she turned her head to the left, away from him, and then back to the right, her sightless eyes finding nothing in the gloom. She seemed to be listening for something, and her expression contorted slightly as if with wariness. Then, just as carefully, she tilted her head upwards…and her unseeing gaze settled onto her stalker and rested there, as if she knew his position without having her vision at her disposal. For a moment the clone regarded her with a silent snarl – it was impossible for her to have sensed his presence and his gaze upon her. She was no empathic psychic, capable of feeling the emotions and thoughts of others, nor could her sense of smell and hearing be so acute to detect his phantom movements above her. So why did he feel as if those pale lilac eyes, beneath the scars across her face, were peering directly at him? You are blind, he thought to her, you cannot see me, woman. Yet even as he reassured himself of such, he could not help but shiver, relieved, as she turned her face to the concrete river before her and began to once more walk across the stone surface. It was almost as if she had known he was there…but that was impossible for her. He stowed the musing away and the unprecedented worry it spawned, and continued to follow her, a pale shadow rushing through in the air.

It was through her display of caution that he first noted the presence of the male group, who were gathered near the bridge she wandered over to reach the northern area of the park. Stealth was second nature to him, so he did not entertain the concern that they had spotted him while he was so intent on his prey. Yet seeing how she stepped over to the opposite side of the path, distancing herself as far away from their slurred voices as possible, half of his attention automatically became focused upon them. The four other humans were around her age, sporting college shirts and passing around a bottle of sake and little white rolls, which he recognized to be joints of marijuana. He doubted the combination of alcohol and euphoria-inducing smoke would be a positive meld when concerning the sober souls around them. In their highs and drunken states, they earned a sense of bravery, recklessness, and stupidity that they otherwise would have lacked. Perhaps the fools might have been mature, thoughtful creatures at another time, but under the influence of vices that made their heads rife with fog they became something closer to basic animals, laughing heartily at things that weren't funny. In their states better judgment fled, and the stalker's eyes narrowed as he saw one of the four elbow a friend and gesture towards the perfect victim walking past the bench they stood around. After all, the woman could not see their faces for later identification, and their voices were now garbled through a lack of proper motor function at the mouth. Precise speech was difficult for them considering all the minute workings of the muscles involved, which needed the brain to function properly in order to execute. Having no such thing at their disposal, their words came out slurred and with unusual intonations; the discussion between them possessed barely cohesive meaning. They were far from the ideal predators, but Anne Nakamura would be easy enough for them to pick on. As he watched, the group began to trail behind her, giggling under their foul breaths like a pack of woozy hyenas. The pokemon above their heads felt his hackles rise, and silently ordered the woman to move faster. Though she tried, her speed had its limits – even these men could catch up to her with ease.

With his sharp ears he could hear her breathing quicken with an edge of panic, though she kept moving her feet forward, struggling not to stumble as she did so. She did not allow her fear to show on her face, but he could smell it in the night breeze. If she were among a stampeding herd on the grassy plains of the Safari Zone, she would undoubtedly be one of the frail, sickly creatures that the hunters of the territory would isolate and dispatch to feed their hungry bellies. Had nature had its way with her, she would have died long ago…but humanity has a sense of sentimentality that allowed the weak to survive, and for some to add their flawed genes to what would become an ever more sullied gene pool. Not that Anne Nakamura had been born this way: she had spent the first seventeen years of her life with a working set of eyes, so it was not as if it would damage her species' genetic quality if she bred. Still, had she been left entirely alone to fend for herself, she would have perished in helplessness, perhaps by the hands of these very same type of people. Watching the leading two young men stumble ahead of her, so their force surrounded her in an enclosing box, the drifter felt aggravation begin to stir deep inside his belly. She had already been the victim of fate once before – must she be made to suffer again? Mewtwo would admit to himself that while he did not place her in any high regard, he did not savor the idea of her being harmed or having to endure any traumatizing humiliation. Perhaps it was a part of his nature to defend the downtrodden, having been among their ranks before and used like a pawn. Perhaps it was merely a residual feeling of championship, having been the leader to two dozen other pokemon in the past. Or perhaps he acted out of mere annoyance: after all, the woman had captured his interest, and until it was fully satisfied, he had no desire to witness her demise. Furthermore, she was marked by him as his own prey, and like any hunter he had no desire to share her with lesser beings.

Yet all the same, as Anne was at last forced to stop, her trembling form shoved between the four hyena-men – who let loose a slur of catcalls and fresh laughter her way – the clone acted.

They never got a chance to put their fingers, or anything else, against the more tender areas of her pale flesh.

The first harasser, as if lifted by the hand of an angry god, vanished into the black talons of the tree branches some fifteen feet away from where he'd stood before his companions realized something was amiss. The sound of wood and bones breaking, and the sharp scent of spilled blood, made the irritated psychic smile with sadistic pleasure. Only the low moan from the stained leaves announced that the would-be molester was still alive. The true stalker cared little, for he knew the man was out of the way for the time being. The other three stopped their pestering antics, turning jerkily with wide, surprised eyes to their not-exactly fallen comrade. As they looked around frantically for an invisible foe, the pokemon had to chuckle to himself: the humans' greatest fatal flaw, beyond their soft, weaponless forms, was that they never had the intelligence to look up. Always they believed their enemies to be as grounded as they, and so cast their searching eyes into the gloom by their sides. It was, as he had mused, a foolishness that he could exploit…though as he saw the men take out switchblades, he had to frown for the sake of the woman yet among them. After all, unlike pokemon who could monitor their own actions, mindless knives were controlled by the fearful, shaky hands of their senseless masters. Though the elemental creatures possessed sheer firepower, the beings knew how to control their actions. Humans however, unless they were trained in weaponry, were not so nimble. One slip could murder the female unintentionally, and under the circumstances that might happen with ease. He had to admit that his annoyance was only increasing – had they possessed their servant teams to back them, he would have enjoyed defeating them by far more. Yet considering that oftentimes the containment orbs of those slaves were confiscated and transferred to the nearest Pokemon Center when their carrier became tipsy (to hopefully prevent damage to public property from misuse of the creatures inside), and these humans did not even appear to have training licenses, he was left with a less than amusing scenario. Not only would the remaining three not put up a challenge, but now they also had full means to threaten his prey. Mewtwo, even with the intoxicating scent of blood filling his nostrils, was not entertained.

With a bored look, he leapt among the entourage, and controlling his momentum spun about, the thick muscles of his heavy tail catching the two nearest to him in their sides and stomachs. He felt ribs crackle, felt the sour exhalations of their lungs leave them as he crushed their thoraxes inwards. The blow knocked them to the edges of the sidewalk, their bodies lying as if washed upon a grassy shore. Whether they were alive or deceased mattered little to the violent creature, and he ignored them like the now stinging pain in his tail. It would probably be bruised, but his body would heal within a couple of days. His thin cloak twisted around him in folds of moth brown fabric as he turned his icy, glowing eyes towards the last of the four. The man was staring at the monster before him with terror, his pupils mere pinpricks from his fear – he smelled strongly of cold sweat and the urine running down his legs. The shock and horror of what had just occurred was enough to make any being lose control over their own bodies…yet the white demon merely bared his omnivore teeth at the man in the grin of a predator. He was the true devil of the dark night, the thing that lurked in the shadows Man feared. Would the cowering human run away, shrieking out his dread of the nightmarish entity, or would he instead beg not to be harmed like his fellows had been? No; the panicking man could not speak – the words he might have used in warding away the large feline were strangled in his throat. Therefore, he did something that was both quite intuitive and stupid: he darted towards the one he had harassed and pressed himself behind her, the razor in his hand held to her Adam's apple. Whether he knew the monster was defending her, or whether he was trying to shield himself with her body, or both, his plan backfired entirely.

Mewtwo, incapable of using his vocal cords to manage any sort of true speech, used them instead to voice his fury at the man's insolence. The harsh noise that escaped his throat mingled a snarl and a howl, in a sound that made even the most sophisticated of men revert to the primal terror of a prey animal. Within a second Anne Nakamura was no longer within the arms of the treacherous one. The clone used what speed his body possessed to dart behind the two and grasp the man at the base of his neck, his psychic powers rushing through the male, taking control of his nerves and burning him from the inside out. With what strength the almost corpse retained, the demon forced him to release the woman, and slowly, surely, draw his blade across his own throat. Blood spilled, hot and wet, down the front of his sweater, and there was a choked, sputtering gurgle as the man gagged on his own crimson fluid. The dying one collapsed within seconds, his hand having been forced to commit gruesome suicide in Mewtwo's murderous rage. The woman – now sullied with the types of fluids the man had not intended to bestow upon her – stumbled away and promptly regurgitated the remnants of her dinner, adding an acid stink to the air already heavy with copper. The pokemon, his anger and bloodlust fading, stepped around the pool of congealing blood; his person and cloak remained unsullied by the death and pain he had wrought. Knowing it was no use to conceal himself any longer, nor having a wish to simply vanish back into the shadows, Mewtwo walked slowly towards the frightened, shaking woman, who now leaned heavily onto her cane. She was sobbing in horror and revulsion, and cringed away from him as his steps neared her. He stopped some four feet away, capable of reaching out with his tail and touching her. Yet he refrained, and for a moment did not answer as the Nakamura woman asked him if he was going to kill her too.

When he did speak, he ignored her inquiry, and asked his own question. _"Are you unharmed, woman?"_

She shuddered and seemed to regain control of her quivering body, and straightened fully, turning towards the sound of his voice. She was trying to be strong, to not allow her fear and bewilderment to weaken her. To an extent, her willpower impressed him, but only just. "I'm not hurt…filthy, yes, but not hurt," she murmured out.

The stalker nodded in contentment, even knowing she could not see the acknowledging motion. _"Good. I believe it would be best if I escort you back to your residence – you seem rather shaken presently, and we would not wish this incident to repeat itself due to such timidity, would we?"_

She winced, and edged away carefully. "I would rather you not…I'll be fine, psychic."

The wanderer found himself smiling in some amusement – she obviously did not feel any trust towards her savior, or even recognized him as such. To her he was just another horror in the night who wished to have her as a toy to abuse. While she was correct in part, he truly had no desire to use her or kill her for pleasure. While he might be brutal and vicious towards those who would do harm to others, he could not find within himself the desire to punish an innocent – at least not now that he had learned to recognize who was deserving of his cruelty or not. He stepped up beside the woman in one long step, and took her left arm in his grasp. In his rich baritone he said, _"Humor this vagabond, if you will…please, I have no intention of endangering you. Allow me to walk you to the security of your home. Afterwards, if you wish, I will not linger in the area. Also understand: even if you refuse me this, I will still follow you to ensure that you make it to your dwelling safely. This way you merely will not seem as ideal a target to those who would do you harm…and you also shall know where I am."_

Anne was not pleased, but anger, he thought, was by far better than fear. With a stifled hiss she nodded and began to walk along fleetly, as if to pretend he was not there, though she inevitably dragged him along beside herself. Her white cane darted out before their feet, and the clone matched his long pace with her shorter one, hoping to provide her with an illusion of his humanity. After all, since she was incapable of seeing his felinely appearance, there was a chance he would not need to keep himself concealed around her. For much of his free life he had needed to lurk around like an elusive stray, and being able to safely be in the company of another, without the fear the person would reveal his physical description to the authorities, was a comfort he desired for himself occasionally. Yet it was rare when he could lay his necessary paranoia to rest…after all, being what he was, unique in the eyes of others, the prospects of capturing him, of controlling him, of studying him, were all too tempting for some. If true evidence of his existence surfaced, instead of the rumors that sometimes circled in the region, he would undoubtedly become a hunted creature…and for all his pleasures in battling, he preferred to live a life of peace. For now, as his upper body, including his sleeved right arm, was alike to that of a lithe man's shape, he had no qualms over her arm gazing his. Still, he was careful not to allow his wide hips or his tail to brush against her form, and kept his telltale paw from gracing her exposed skin. Such small oddities would reveal his deception to her immediately, if he had already not revealed his true self to her mind. Yet as far as she seemed to be concerned, he was merely a telepathic trainer – perhaps of Sabrina of Saffron City's coven – with a destructive creature he'd used in the battle for her person now returned to its pokeball. At least he hoped for her sake that was the assumption she'd leapt to. If she put her faith in another belief, he would likely have to tamper with her memory to keep his secret safe. That, he thought – the taste in his mouth bland as he contemplated the matter – would be a heavy disappointment for him. Now having reached out to the woman, he wanted to see how she would respond to his acquaintance in full, preferably over a decent period of time. If he had to cut this frail bond as he had all the others, where would that leave him? Being a mostly introverted being, forming new ties proved difficult and risky for him at best. No, first he would see what might happen concerning this Nakamura woman and him. After all was said and done as could be managed, then he would decide how to move forward….

As they walked onwards, the gloom of the park parting before the lazy roads of suburbia, he noted small details of the female then: her alertness to her environment, of a prey animal ready to dart away from the predator it sensed, but honed for daily use; her cautious movements, with an undertone of certainty through her experience. Her aura and behavior conveyed a thoughtful nature, and even as she kept herself focused on the task before her – returning to her home – half her brain was contemplating other matters rapidly enough that he did not take the trouble to follow their synaptic flow. For a matter of several minutes, his entranced interest was broken as they crossed one street, then another, nearing the more expensive apartment complexes. At points he had to huddle his cloak around his body tighter, using the thin garment to hide his six-foot-seven-inch tall frame from the eyes of curious watchers, and from allowing the headlights of a passing taxi to illuminate his lion-like face. When they entered the parking lot of their destination, however, he again drew his attention to his companion: the still, warm air carried her scent to his muzzle, drifting upwards in their close proximity…she smelled faintly of some sort of baked fruit – a type of apple, perhaps? The sugary fragrance seemed characteristic of those of her sex, but hers was, of course, tainted with other stenches, so he could not identify it in certainty. Soon enough, black asphalt and yellow paint lines cut off into a manicured lawn, and counting her paces once more Anne Nakamura led him to the far building of the triangle design, and soon enough she found the interior entranceway. There, under the porch light, she stopped, and her stalker's arm fell from her as he stepped back into the murk, out of the circle of the electrical illumination. Long moments passed, stretched out in measures of an insect symphony, with the crickets keeping the high beat and the cicadas humming their mechanical tones. Moths and gnats attempted to commit mass suicide against the glass of the glowing light, and the night breeze, smelling of cut vegetation and spilled gasoline, almost carried away the words she spoke to him for the first time since leaving the park.

"Do you…you called yourself a vagabond. Does that mean you have nowhere to stay?"

The creature did not answer right away. When he did, he made light of his situation._ "Not in the sense that I have a precise home. Where I sleep from day to day varies, but I manage regardless. Why do you ask?"_

The woman fidgeted in obvious nervousness, her fingers twisting around her cane with anxiety. "It's just…well you know where I live now. If you wanted, you could probably find my apartment and murder me at any time – I doubt security would be able to stop you, considering…. What I mean is, as thanks for saving me you can spend the night at my place, if you want."

The wanderer's thick eyebrows rose in surprise. He had not expected her to make such an offer, and that she did displayed a type of foolhardy courage he hadn't guessed to be in her arsenal of personal strengths previously. For a moment, he considered chuckling mockingly at her offer, for he was in no need of the soft comforts of a human dwelling, regardless of the caressing bedding she would likely provide him, or the unspoiled food and drink she might reward him with for his actions in rescuing her. After all, the drifter was a wild pokemon, well used to the merciless will of nature and a rougher lifestyle. Yet his curiosity, nearly as potent as that of any human's, drew him forward, as well as the subtle promise of transient belonging. It would last but a few short hours, he understood, but in the end those hours were not ones he entirely desired to forsake simply to prove his independence from Man. He breathed in the night air slowly, flicking his tail behind him, and regarded her wordlessly: her scarred eyes wavered towards where she believed him to stand, as if torn between wishing him to take her offer and also dreading what might happen if he did. In that moment he decided to partake in the unexpected gamble to see where it led him. At the very least, it would sharply break the usual monotone of his existence. With a tiny smirk he spoke quietly, _"Yes, I would be inclined to stay with you, if you truly mean what you say."_

With a nervous little laugh, the woman nodded and took a plastic card from her pocket, swiping it through the slot before her, and pulled open the lever of the entryway door in practiced motions. As she stepped onto the dark burgundy rug of the ground level floor, he followed suit as her silent shadow, with neither of them glancing towards the man behind the counter, who called out a sleepy greeting to them before turning his seat back around to watch the old sitcom playing on the lounge area's television set. The sound of cued audience laughter arose at some banal joke, and Anne Nakamura, her tense form beginning to relax now that she was no longer outside of locked doors, made her way past the counter in confident steps, and pressed the pale button that would summon the elevator compartment to them. With a cheerful ping, the metal doors rolled open, and the stalker and his interest stepped into the cubical space, turning back towards the outside room within a silent moment. After Anne had trailed her fingers up the buttons, finding the highest level, the seventh, she pressed the white key. Now with its destination illuminated, the elevator doors shut and the compartment jerked into motion. As it rose, the sound of soft breathing and listless music was the only noise in the confined space. To the predator's amusement, the twenty-four-year-old began to hum along with the tune, using the act as an outlet for her strained nerves. An indiscernible time passed before the compartment shuddered to a halt, and the two stepped through the opening doors and listened as the elevator descended. Mewtwo glanced around: to either side of them was a long stretch of empty hall that covered the length of the floor, its ends bearing sheets of glass to look out into the world. This latter detail served no use to one unseeing, and turning his eyes back onto her, his curiosity only grew. How was it that she could afford a place like this, and why would she choose to have such views when she could not enjoy them? Regardless, he observed how she fumbled with her keys, and after a bit of groping the door fitted the chosen tool into the lock and turned it. The door swung open wide as she twisted the metallic knob and pushed. Again, why she did this he was uncertain: she might have used a key card like she had to enter the building, or used a number code to unlock the door. Both, he saw, were at her disposal. Yet perhaps she preferred the security that a deadbolt provided, for electronic devices could be rewired to uselessness by experienced burglars.

Shrugging the concept away, he followed her into the spacey apartment and let his eyes roam over the place as he heard her lock the door behind them; for some reason the sound bore a sense of finality, and made the two shiver to themselves as a result.

She flipped the switch of the lights to "on," undoubtedly for his benefit, and he grimaced as the whiteness blinded him temporarily, his pupils narrowing into slits. As he stood in the greeting room, he heard her take off her shoes and place her cane in the umbrella stand beside the door. Her pale form, blurred as he blinked rapidly to adjust his eyes to the sudden glow, drifted into the kitchen area, her fingers following along familiar walls and counters which bore signs of her prints from the oils of her hands. In a carrying voice, she asked him whether he liked ocha (green tea), and as he confirmed his preference for the herbal drink, he slowly found his way to the low table in the dining room and sat down on the floor, resting his head in his paws. Previously, the shifting from light to dark had never been so abrupt, and the shock of it triggered the inevitable headache that came from heavy use of his psychic abilities. His more dramatic possession of the final attacker's motor skills was likely to blame, for in moderation the use of telekinesis was hardly draining nor would result in cranial pain. From between his curled fingers, he watched as the woman with dirtied clothes carefully filled a kettle with water, touched the stovetop and placed the boiling instrument there, and flipped the switch to heat the pad beneath it. Rummaging through the nearly vacant cupboards, she pulled out a box with Brail letters raised upon it, and reading the product's name through touch she scooped some of the tea leaves with a spoon and, once she could feel the steam rising from the hot kettle, carefully grasped the wooden top and mixed the camellia within the bubbling liquid.

As the soothing scent pervaded the apartment, sweet to the nose, the pokemon sighed inaudibly. The tea and its warmth would help ease the ache he was experiencing, and put him more at ease in this confined place. Minutes passed between the pair in silence, and once the tea was ready Anne Nakamura turned the stove off and cautiously felt for the handle of the kettle. Having taken out two cups earlier, she carried the set to the table, placing them upon the wooden surface slowly so as not to accidently spill the hot fluid. With utter care the blind woman managed to pour them both cupfuls of the steaming beverage, albeit the contents a tad shallow, paying all her attention to her hearing to gauge how much she poured. The feline took note of the whole process, and when she asked if he'd like anything to go with his tea, he replied that milk would suffice. When she came back with the thin jug, he contemplated watching the entire affair again, but decided on the kinder route. He took the milk from her, and explained tonelessly, _"I am meticulous when it comes to the amount of milk in my tea. Even if you were to pay my words heed and cease pouring when I tell you to, I would prefer to do it myself. You are an admirable hostess, but I am not helpless, Miss Nakamura."_

She froze, caught between offense and wariness, before finally sitting down as well, stirring a cube of sugar into her drink as the feline added the calcium-rich fluid to his. There was a lengthy, awkward silence between them which both attempted to ignore, even as they fought to find something to say. Finally, Anne Nakamura wondered aloud, "And you know my name because…?"

Mewtwo grinned and sipped his tea. _"It was posted beneath the number on your front door."_

The silver scars of her eyes crinkled. "_Right_…and what about you? What would your name be, stranger?"

The stalker contemplated how he should respond, whether he should give her verity or a quickly spun lie. Seconds ticked by between them, counted by the grandfather clock down the hall, which rang out that it was fifteen minutes past eleven at night. Eventually, the feline merely decided on telling her the truth, and in a soft voice spoke one word: _"Mewtwo."_

She tilted her head just so, in mimicry of a questioning animal, and echoed, "'Mewtwo'? I'm not sure I understand; is that a nickname, an alias, or…?"

"_It is merely a name you may call me. Perhaps someday I shall explain it to you in more detail, if we are still in each other's company and I feel that such disclosure is acceptable."_

The woman nodded slowly, trusting that he could see the gesture, and sipped her ocha. Afterwards, she seemed to stare down into the green fluid her cup contained, and when she lifted her sightless eyes back to him, she murmured, "Alright…but will you honestly answer me about something else? Are you registered?"

His brow furrowed with some aggravation. _"As a meta-human, you mean? No…while I was, for a time, among the ranks of trainers, I left such a path a long time ago…however, my wandering tendencies remain. As I stated before, I am a vagabond, and as of such it is more beneficial for me to remain unlisted. Do you understand?"_

Again she nodded her head in confirmation of his words, and after contemplating them for a time, she replied, "Well, Mewtwo, this place is my home…as a guest here, you're free to use my utilities as long as you don't abuse them. Also, there's white rice and cooking supplies in the kitchen, and bedclothes in the second bedroom, so…make yourself comfortable while you're here, is what I'm trying to say."

He had clearly misread her: she was indeed braver than he had originally thought, as well as kinder. Even though he had been nothing less than ambiguous in the personal information he'd given her, she was still bestowing upon him some sense of credibility, and that was more than most people would have willing surrendered. Finishing his tea and peering at the dark dredges, he poured himself another cupful and thanked her. Then, slowly, he uttered, _"…I appreciate your hospitality, woman."_

Neither of them left the table until they'd finished the kettle of ocha.

* * *


	3. The Stygian Hours

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* * *

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Wednesday, November 2nd of 2005 / 6:42 a.m.:

Nearly four months later Mewtwo awoke upon her couch, having never fully taken comfort from a human's bed…and in those few months, he had never truly left the condominium.

Staring up at the now familiar ceiling beneath a thin, white blanket that smelled heavily of the scent of his pelt, he listened to Anne stirring in her bedroom down the hall, and after a few of the usual fumbling noises there came the hiss of the shower facet being turned on. Even from here he could detect the sound of the curtain being drawn, of water hitting sleep-grimy skin, of the liquid splashes against the ceramic basin, and of hot fluid swirling down the drain. The apartment was cool now in the budding winter's chill, and as he closed his eyes the clone could almost feel the warmth flowing from the bathroom against his fur. In his mind, five minutes were counted off, and with a sigh he rolled from his covers, landing on the carpet with his paws, and stretched his limbs and spine, eager to rid the stiffness of slumber from his muscles. By the time he had finished the routine the shower had been turned off, and he could hear the woman riffling through her clothes, which had been ordered by color by her friends. Hangers clicked against hangers, fabrics brushed together, and with a furrowing brow he heard her chose her garments for the day and slip them on, the bodily coverings making soft, delighted whispers as they slid against her naked skin. She was always so careful to make certain she was fully dressed before stepping out from her room….

Had she been as cautious before his arrival into her life? He could not know, for he would not ask her if she'd wandered around her home half-nude when she had lived alone. The feline merely went into the kitchen, which was now by far more furbished than when he'd first spent the night. It had become traditional for him to create them both a shared breakfast before they went their separate ways for the day, her to her work and he to his wandering, and it was probably the healthiest meal Anne had the entire day. How she had ever managed to stay as slim as she was when consuming pre-prepared meals wasn't something he entirely understood, but her high metabolism was probably part of the balancing act. That she exercised in her free time, having few other options available for isolated recreation, and was allergic to chocolate, and hence had to avoid most sweet snacks, probably helped matters. After all, she ate like a bird: always in large quantities (although she usually stuck to healthy foods). At the very least, this information had explained why she smelled like apples – caramel was one of the few candies she trusted, and it went very well with the fruit. She had at least one a day, and not for the purpose of warding away her fretful doctor.

The radio came to life in her room, the sounds of soft music from the nineties filtering into the house. She listened to the local news and weather announcement, and he caught onto the words which made him pause in the middle of telekinetically dicing ham and peppers for the omelet he was frying for them: the first snowfall was supposed to arrive during the eventual dusk. His white teeth bared at the invisible memories that threatened to rise up within him at the cheerful declaration, and he focused his concentration entirely on the cooking before him. Still, it did not stop the cruelties of the past from stirring within his chest, dark and heavy, along with equal parts of fury, sorrow, and regret. His vision grew dim, as if the lights above him had begun to flicker out, and as he served one omelet then another onto plates, and prepared the morning tea, he gazed smolderingly at the vapors rising from the kettle. The heat gathering in the pristine room did not warm his insides, which were forever frosted with winter's chill. The breath in his lungs felt bitterly frozen, like splinters of ice driving into his tender organs. He mused that now that the hours of the day were so short, his bouts of wandering were becoming more frequent and lengthy with the freedom of the long nights. Oftentimes he did not return for nearly a week, and though his companion never asked about where he went or what he did during this time, she seemed to sense how sullen and distant he had become lately.

Not that he had ever been incredibly warm towards her…his heart, barely beating, was a block of black ice, of arctic stone, and had never threatened to melt in his stay here. Yet in its core, he understood that something was softening towards this place. It had become a sanctuary for him, a haven he dared consider his own, for Anne had never made him leave. The more they had come to understand one another, the more he had realized that she never would force him to depart. Even though he only burdened her with the need for more supplies to sustain two adults instead of one, as he had no way of gaining money though legal means to aid her in the task, and even though he had never once called her a friend, she allowed his closeness. He did not know why, and had fought the temptation more than once to ravish her mind to find the answers he sought. Yet he never went so far as to mentally violate her, nor physically for that matter, which faintly surprised and relieved him. After all, he was not a man; his urges, his instincts, gripped a far larger part of his brain, and he suspected it was only the intellectual nature of his being that kept her safe. Not that he suspected he could naturally feel a desire for a human creature, but he was strict in his abstinence from carnality, and considering he was a healthy male in his prime, unusual outlets could possibly form. Seeing as how the woman was also an adult, and well fertile at that – and so had pheromone-ridden cycles that he was unfortunate enough to be able to consciously notice – the concept of his raping her was not a complete impossibility, or if their forms would not match, the notion of an attempt was still there.

Yet thankfully his body was mastered by his will…and his will refused to contemplate any sort of coitus with the female. Such topics were matters he did not entertain for long; they usually only came up when his thoughts had been allowed to wander along stray paths. Sometimes there were triggers…her monthly bleeding had been the first of which had startled him into such ruminations. It was not as if he hadn't lived with females before, but the manner of this relationship was not the same as those in the past. This twenty-some was not a childhood friend, nor a servant or caretaker, nor his enemy: she was something else that he could not label. That worried him, and he comforted himself with the idea that they could never be close. Considering the sins his tattered soul bore, only forgiveness could bridge the gap…and that was the one thing he was certain he would never be given.

As lost as he was in his contemplations, he barely spoke to Anne that morning, and after finding her attempts to make conversation with him were futile, the blind woman fell into dismayed silence and almost seemed to go off her food. Yet she ate and drank, took her dishes and set them in the sink, and grabbed her purse and cane. When she left her companion's shoulders sagged, and he bowed his head with a low sigh. He stayed in the apartment, drifting from room to room aimlessly, occasionally noting that the clock indicated hours were passing in what seemed as mere seconds to his dreary mind. Restlessness began to gather within his body, accompanied by a spirit-deep discontentment. The clone knew where the feelings would lead and attempted to fight them down…but his somber mood was a poor warrior, and the rising bout of depression only strengthened the sickness. Eventually he pulled his cloak over his quivering body, and left the apartment well before Anne returned home. When she did arrive she would not wonder where he was - his transience, ironically, was a constant thing. Yes, he remained by her metaphorical side, yet his actual presence near her would fade in and out like a phantom attempting to manifest itself.

Stepping through the grimy alleyways of the depths of the metropolis, far removed from the sparkling neighborhoods that the tourists, the middle class, and the rich saw, Mewtwo more than once bumped shoulders with the forlorn pokemon and humans who populated the degraded area. Numerous times they threw punches and cussed at him for his impoliteness, but the drifter ignored them. In his mind, it was no longer late in the year of 2005 – it was the final days of 1997 once more, and the emotions he had thought he'd left behind flooded him in his wanderings along grey paths: dissatisfaction, confusion, the need for alterations in an otherwise unchanging world, a craving for something more in the monotone of meaningless days. The adrenaline flow of victorious battles and sharpening control had lost its pioneering thrill months before, and as the Gym had closed for winter break, the experimental studies it financed had halted for now. Even the sadistic Team Rocket scientists of the Viridian Laboratory Unit needed a break from conducting sanctioned torture, and so had ceased testing the clone in any creative ways to instead enjoy the holidays with their clueless families. Spouses, children, siblings – none knew they loved and harbored sentient monsters in their warm homes. None knew what Mewtwo had seen their beloveds do to the poor and the different, to the people whose absence would go unnoted. Sand, sawdust, and shattered glass rubbed into wounds; dynamite exploded in the bowels of the victims; lungs filled with different poisonous gases that choked the ones who dared to breath; twins forced to molest and rape each other or die – _all done just to see what would happen._

And those were only the human victims; pokemon too were the prey of the morbid trials for potential genocide. What would happen if you ran a Ditto through a blender? What would happen if you put a Magnemite into a particle accelerator? And if you dunked a Charmander into a sink full of water, would its external fire burn off the liquid or would it simply die? Mewtwo, the useful toy that he was, had been spared the worst of such abuse…but more than once he'd been placed on morphine to kill the pain, and as his immunity to the drug had increased, so had the dosage of his injections. Addiction to opiates, then, was almost natural and unavoidable. Even after the experimentation upon his body and his powers had eased off, leaving only unseen scars as evidence of the damage done to him, the craving for the painkillers remained. In the end he had needed the cool bliss of the drugs to puncture the normalcy he was forced to undergo. Doing his own tests on the matter, he had found that one method gave him the precise escape he sought. It could even be delivered in a syringe, and needles, suffice to say, offered their own sort of comfort in how inured Mewtwo was to them...

Currently, the clone's present mimicked the past when he found one of the familiar dealers in the degenerate cesspools of Viridian's underbelly. With a few tricks of hypnosis he forced the man to smile and give him the priceless narcotic for free, no payment necessary. A shame the replica had not known how to influence a mind so craftily when he had been younger…but then, if he had, would the current situation be occurring? No, that was unlikely…. Once Mewtwo had obtained the few supplies he required from the now empty-handed male, the psychic drifted to a place where he could spend the next few hours in isolation. An abandoned church, its benches turned into timber for fueling nearby fires, its altar shattered and holy water spilled, would serve his purposes nicely. Though years that had passed since his last visit, it was still standing, though vacated and more rundown. Not even homeless rats disturbed the structure's gothic silence, and the gargoyles who glared at the wanderer averted their eyes from his intimidating appearance. If they could see within the building and spy his intents, their timid attitudes would shift into loathing - but their eyes were grey and sightless, and their bodies of unmoving stone. The demonic statues could not hinder him from partaking in chemical indulgences.

Leaning his back against the graffiti-decorated brick wall, the broken glass of the windows glittered with the bloody light of sunset. The broken faces of saints and angels gazed down upon him, uttering no commands to stop the abomination before them. The sun, he noted, was of the same crimson shade as the bead of blood that burst forth from his skin when the tip of the sanitized needle pierced one of the main veins of his left forearm…the plunger was pushed, draining the liquefied heroin into his bloodstream. Minutes passed…then, the effects sank in as the chemicals hit the blood-brain barrier and forced their way through to tissue wall: warm euphoria; silver bliss; the ecstasy of wild, careless flight without the battering of cutting wind against the now forgotten skin. The arms of a controlling, synthetic lover wrapped around him, firm and tight, and thrust him high into the fog of hormonal release…. He watched the skies in the windows darken into black, and the starlight burned into his glassy eyes. Sounds became keener, adding harsh music to the waves of elation washing throughout him, the pleasure carried in his sullied blood. For a few short hours he sat within the church, motionless except for in his enraptured, soaring mind…. The syringe had fallen from his awkward paw sometime prior, and his blood ceased flowing from the encrusted injection site. Yet in that time Mewtwo found escape: he was free from excruciating memories and the heavy guilt saturating them, and could forget the cause of his regret and the irony of this moment. How sick was it to be comforted by the very thing that had taken from him any semblance of solace? How twisted had he become to yearn for the vice that would destroy the fragile peace within his soul, which he had gained these past few years…? Always his usage of the drug marked the worst moments in his life, not because the effect of the substance was wretched to his being – for it never ceased to provide him with all it promised - but because he used it only when he'd fallen so far he knew no other way out, except to replace anguish with temporary euphoria.

Yet the high could only last so long. As it began to fade, thought resurfaced, and so did the feelings of self-disgust and hatred for what had occurred. He was a destroyer of not only himself but of everything around him. After all, that was why he had been made: he was supposed to be a weapon, and he truly fulfilled his first accursed purpose, as a poison to those who came near him. The fault lay upon him, the blame lay upon him, and to himself he was the punisher for his crimes. Once control was regained, itchiness surfaced over his skin like biting fleas, and he pawed at his muzzle with clawless fingers, for his nostrils held the worst of the irritating sensation. Apathy rolled throughout him from unreasonable aggravation, and he knew at once he would have to stay here for the night. In this rabid state he could too easily snap back into the monster he'd been for so long under Giovanni's control. So he curled up against the brick wall, his mind racing though he tried to make his depraved musings quiet…. He found nothing but fitful moments of sleep that moonless twilight, and in the morning the feelings of restlessness increased their potency. The discarded syringe cried its promise of relief, that it would fight away his stress as long as it could before succumbing to fatigue. Wryly, Mewtwo smiled as he gazed into the pale glow of sunrise…what did it matter it he let it have its way with him? What did it matter if he allowed his heroin lady to possess him in a rampant, lustful frenzy? No one in the world would give a damn about the state of his revolting being, which was neither human nor pokemon nor simply a dumb animal. The only one who might feel concern would never find him here…moreover, if she knew the details of reality, she would turn from him in abhorrence. Her senseless affection would die with the truth…and so in careless distraught the clone moved forward to feed his craving.

For as relentless and cruel as the goddess of the drug was, she loved her followers even as her touch made her worshippers decay….

The darkness that possessed the clone caused him to spiral into almost suicidal despair for the next two weeks as he pursued his vice. Never before had he used heroin as more than simple, occasional recreation in the past, taking it once, maybe twice within a single month when younger. As of such, he was unprepared for the escalation of need and increased quantity that gripped him after the first few days passed. Each time the injections he took were larger in his heightening immunity, and sometimes the differing purities of the narcotic would send him into a ride he was unprepared to handle. His psychic powers, usually suppressed even in utter bliss, lashed out at the nearby scum of the earth, the lilac bolts running through the bags of flesh and blood like Roman spears. The more fortunate of these injured passerbies merely received instantly cauterized wounds; the ones whose luck had betrayed them died in unbearable pain as their internal viscera was unzipped to the air and, spilling out, fried with intense neuroelectrical charges. No one, the clone noticed, appeared to care about these outcasts – no one mourned, no one noticed, and no one came to punish the one responsible. The world was a horrible place, and with humanity at the controls of Fate, it would probably cannibalize itself within a century. No glimmer of hope lingered…after all this time in which he had attempted to believe in something, the goodness of life - so sporadic and exquisite - had fallen into obscurity. He tried to find an example of true strength among the events in his history, but all seemed tainted…even the actions of two naïve children did not shine any light into the black place he had settled within.

Yet something made him surface from the shadows. Another need accompanied the drug, and as he threw away the lady heroin (for she no longer provided him an escape through mindless pleasure, forcing him to turn to pain) in hopes of suffering from her counterpart, withdrawal, as befitting punishment instead, he began to recognize what it was he yearned for: understanding. Not for himself did he seek clarity, but from someone else captured within eternal night. That Anne Nakamura - who he had left behind for the past half month - came to mind was easy enough to comprehend. She had lived on past the devastating loss of her vision, lived on through the emotions that reflected his own suffering, and then onwards through her days in total darkness. As of such, she was a light, a beacon which called him to shore, so shakily he rose to his feet. Slowly, fighting inevitable convulsions and growing nausea, the clone made his way back into the downtown area of the city. By the time he reached the familiar outskirts of the apartment complex Anne lived in, his fur was damp with perspiration and chills raced across his flesh. He used what powers he dared to teleport inside - there was no other way for him to enter the building. The longue at this hour was blessedly empty, and so the ill feline attracted no attention as he boarded the elevator to the top floor.

How odd it seemed to him then, as he leaned against the metal walls of the confined compartment and tried not to vomit up bile, that he was going to a member of the species he despised in such a powerless state. However, he wanted to see the woman, to speak with her, and perhaps to ask for her forgiveness…this detoxification, after all, might just kill him. His body had been built to be strong, but he was not immune to the dangers of suddenly cutting himself off from his vice. Luckily he had a steady heart inside his ribs; if it had been weak, he would already be a corpse cooling in an alleyway…. Anguish shook him and goosebumps prickled beneath his light fur as he stepped out of the halted elevator. For a time, he leaned against Anne's door, unable to gather the strength to simply call out or knock. Finally, he pumped his paw once, twice, three times against the wooden surface. She would not welcome him back, he thought…she had probably already forfeited the belief that he would return. Perhaps her family was inside, eating with her, or her friends were there…he would interrupt the warm social environment and turn it into a nightmare. He was risking being seen by those who could see…he risked everything now, but if he was going to be murdered by his own yearning body, what did it matter? He had to ask the human something…he had to ask….

A voice called out through the door, soft and somewhat uncertain. "Who is it? Is someone out there?"

Should he respond? Not able to think it through properly, he chose to speak. _"Am I still welcome, Anne?"_

The door flew open before he had a chance to brace himself, and he stumbled into the place, catching the woman on the side as he fell. The vertigo of the motion made him retch as he managed to pick himself up onto all fours – the yellow liquid splattered upon the carpet in a sour rush of sickness. His muscles, out of his full control, quaked as a frantic Anne asked him if he was alright. Yet no, she comprehended in seconds how ill he was, and with what strength she possessed helped carry his two hundred and sixty-seven pound frame into the bathroom. There he fully succumbed to the withdrawal that flooded over him: his cloak, the tiles of the floor, and the inside of the porcelain toilet became soiled with bile and liquid feces. Barely strong enough walk anymore, the being attempted to rise from his own muck and clean his fur and the floor beneath him, but he was unable to in an egregious manner. Distinctly he could hear Anne crying out in horror and shock – for though she could not see his state, her nose and ears worked fine, and the stench of disease and the afflicted sounds that rose from her companion told her all she needed to know of his condition. He apologized to her in the repetition of a mantra, but she didn't listen to his ramblings. At one point in their struggle, the wanderer felt her attempting to remove his sordid cloak - he fought against her in instinctual fear and from the deep, intellectual need to uphold the confidentiality of his person. She did not realize what he truly was...if she felt his form all his lies would become overt-.

"Damn it, Mewtwo, stop trying to push me away! Let me help you…please let me…." Her pale eyes dripped with glistening tears as she begged. Still he defied her will, and when she tentatively managed to persuade him to step into the shower, he blatantly refused to allow her to aid him further. She stood helplessly within the befouled bathroom, not knowing how to make her roommate behave himself so she could attend to him. Finally she forfeited trying to force hydrating liquid down his throat or make him munch on crackers (even if he would have taken the sustenance, his body would have rejected it within moments anyhow), disappearing from his sights for an indiscernible time. As the warm waters from the faucet washed over him, his body twitched with muscle cramps; no drug could help him now beyond the one he had forsaken. From a distance he heard Anne conversing hurriedly with someone over the telephone, her pleas being carried over the steaming spray: "…Joseph, you have to come over. I need your help…I don't know what to do - he won't let me close to him! He's sick and I - I don't know what I should…! Please just come…_please_, Joseph."

About an hour later Mewtwo's ears detected the tenor voice of a man at the apartment door, and he lifted his face shortly to note that Anne had returned with a male at her side. The stranger possessed much of her general appearance - the pale skin and the light brown hair were identical between them. The only evident difference beyond the features of their opposing sexes was the stranger's eyes: they were crystallized, dark hazel. Those eyes widened as they beheld the sight of the stricken pokemon within the bathtub, his fur yet matted with vomit and shit. The animalistic part of Mewtwo's brain growled at the arrival of an alien being who he'd never seen before, despite the obvious realization that the human was Anne's older brother, and he heard the mental noise become a physical hiss. The clean-shaven man jabbered something to his sibling, something about being a human doctor and not a pokemon one. Anne's own response made the clone start within himself even as he writhed in deepening misery: "I know, but I doubt he'd willingly go to a Center…and even if he did, how would Nurse Joy treat him? He's not of any known pokemon species! And assuming she did manage to cure him, what would happen afterwards? He'd be studied and euthanized like a stray not fit to be around humans after the zoologists were finished with him…! I _won't _have that happen, so please, help me find a way to help him!"

Mewtwo curled up farther into himself in woe: it seemed his farce had been discovered or not believed in the first place, and now a man he was not certain was trustworthy was going to masquerade as his physician. The drifter might have chuckled bitterly at the concept, for he had never known of anything but pain to result in a doctor's treatment of his ails. Quite the contrary, those he'd had the misfortunate of encountering had been far from healers. Oh yes, they had preformed surgeries, understood anatomy extensively, and knew which medications had what effect upon the body…but they had relished the power their knowledge bestowed upon them, choosing to use their precious facts against their unwilling patients. Very few had literally made it out of the their grip in one piece, for if it had not been the victim's organs taken for black market transplant, than usually the mind was severed from rational thought. He was of the minority allowed to escape their pristine halls with his body and his brain intact, without the desperate need to flee into the world-numbing realm of insanity to cope with the trauma. Yet even though he had been a prize too valuable to dismember, he remembered the screams of the less fortunate, the begging, the useless tears and unanswered prayers. Evil dressed in white, sea-green, and pink; it covered itself with masks and plastic to hide its decomposing, maggot-ridden face. Only the mortal Satan that allowed the feculent atrocities to occur in the medical hell was worse than its inhabitants, for he accepted the macabre curiosity of his followers as a necessity for furthering evolution. Why they could not have contented themselves with thievery of living beings and illegal wares, the clone did not know…maybe it had not been gratifying enough, nor could be excused in "the holy pursuit of science." Either way, what he had witnessed was unforgivable, even by a broken creature such as him. Was it then truly so shocking that as soon as he felt the gloved hands of the doctor against his fur and cloak, he twisted away and snarled out:_ "Do not touch me…do not _touch_ me! If you dare lay your bloodied fingers upon my form again, I shall rip your entrails from your gut and strangle you with them-."_

Before he finished the gruesome threat, a stinging sensation erupted across the side of his face: Anne, in her fury and her helplessness, had managed an exceedingly lucky hit when slapping him across the face. In a hoarse voice, she murmured, "Don't…Mewtwo, don't; we're just trying to help you, so stop threatening my brother."

The psychic laughed at her mockingly. _"What do you believe you can do, Anne Nakamura? You cannot save me from a sickness of my own making, for you cannot condone the cure...and even if you do, I will not take it into myself. Let me suffer-."_

The firmness of her response quieted him. "No, I will not. Joseph, tranquillize him – you're not going to be able to do anything until he's sedated."

Though Mewtwo flailed out with all of his five limbs against the male's approach, he could not avert the prick of the clean syringe into his arm, nor resist the hypnotic calm that overtook him once its serum had been introduced into his system. Lying in the draining, muddied water, he watched with dull eyes as the elder human cut away his saturated cloak, and once the soiled fabric had been removed with a couple fierce tugs, gloved hands roamed over his form. The revolting sensation further sickened the bipedal cat with memories of near-molestation: some females among the depraved medics, and a few males for that matter, had been scarcely able to resist the fetishes that had warmed their intimate parts as they'd searched his form, delighting in the familiar and exotic attributes of the cloned being. Sexual abuse and tests had never been forced upon him, but he remembered the glow in the backs of their probing eyes, the way the tips of their forked tongues had darted from their mouths. Yes, he could see the contrast to their lusts in the gaze Joseph administered to him: his was purely professional, his intent merely upon cataloguing the deviations from his estimates concerning Mewtwo's typical health. His hazel irises did not flicker with the amber glow of desire; yet still the clone shuddered as he repressed the urge to maim, to kill, always there beneath the surface when confronted with situations not to his tastes. Had he not been so weak such restrain might have snapped, but fatigue in addition to the depressive filtering into his central nervous system held him in check. It always had….

Therefore he tried not to muse upon the unwelcome touch, or of how his intended plans for this night had been ripped from his control. Still, the sensation was there in the comparatively hot hands at his face, which checked for fever, and at his chest, checking the rate of his oversized cardiac muscle – its beating was quick and erratic as the darting of a gazelle. The doctor then searched the pokemon's thin arms, tracing the "tracks" that had been raised from internal scarring of semi-collapsed veins. Joseph's brow furrowed as he opened Mewtwo's dry, foul mouth, and flooded, irritated eyes, and then he said in the formal tone of his profession, "His symptoms include dilated pupils, piloerection, hypersecretion of the lachrymal ducts, shaking, chills, diarrhea, vomiting, with what I believe to be abnormal blood pressure, pulse rate, and body temperature. I imagine you haven't been feeling very hungry or sleepy, have you?"

"_Do not speak to me with terms fit for a child-."_

"We will tack irritability onto the list too, because from what Anne says you usually aren't so nasty to people – rude, maybe, and disrespectful, but not nasty," Joseph added, and cleaned the feline's fur with a rag soaked in hydrogen peroxide. The fumes cut through the mucus gathered in Mewtwo's sinuses, and made his throat close up and his flesh sting as the alcohol content burned through grime and bacteria. Once the searing heat had faded, a tingling sensation was left in its wake as his pelt was cleaned. Never before had the creature felt so unbearably pathetic and inadequate, and his chagrin made him curl his lips upwards from over his teeth and gums. Ignoring the glare he was being given, another question arose from the brother of his companion, "Now exactly how long have you been like this?"

The clone thought on the subject and humored the man, even though he fully knew what was happening. Let the human come to his own conclusion; it might make him feel clever and superior in some way, this defiant one of nature's will, and ease his sister's worry. _"…About fifty-two hours,"_ he answered, his words bland with disgust.

The man nodded as if that solved a complicated puzzle within his mind, and went on to place the jigsaw pieces together. "Initially, I'd say your symptoms are indicative of severe influenza, but the problem obviously isn't a twenty-four hour virus. Taking into consideration the scarring along your forearms, and what your earlier statements suggest, would I be right to assume that you've been using illicit drugs - heroin explicitly? …Is that twitch of your head a 'yes'? I thought so…of course, such addiction is highly unusual for a pokemon, but I suppose you aren't a common creature-."

Anne's soft voice suddenly arose, and in a trembling, high alto she murmured, "You mean he's going through detox?"

Joseph's expression darkened; looking Mewtwo's quivering body over again, fury and all, he nodded. "Yeah, Anne, that's exactly what's happening. The worst should be over in the next eighteen hours, but he'll be craving the drug for months. We could try to ease his current pain by providing him with a low dose, and then slowly weaning him off of the opiate, however-."

The deep rumble of a baritone-inlaid growl cut off all the possibility of that method. _"No - I would refuse that route, and _you_ cannot legally force a patient into such therapy against his or her will."_

There was a pause as the doctor contemplated his words. Carefully removing his gloves, folding them inside-out, the human's mouth thinned into a tight line before it broke to state, "You could very well die through the shock of going 'cold turkey'…you realize that, right?" The drifter did not answer the medic, having known well what he was involving himself in when taking up his vice again. The clone had seen the convulsing bodies of addicts before this experience, their sweating persons suffering from the lack of the very poison that punished them whilst it gave them pleasure. Heroine was a sadistic lover indeed, for some had turned to corpses without her warmth to sustain them. Knowing the glassy-eyed pokemon was not planning to respond, the man sighed out, "Then there's very little I can do for you. Anne, I'll stay with you and monitor his progress, but please try to understand me when I say nothing we can do might help. If he turns violent, I hope you will be willing to back off…you've been maimed by a pokemon once in the past; I won't let it happen again."

With those words, the already dreary shadows in the smothering atmosphere deepened in their dark intensity, malevolent and choking. It brought to the clone's mind all he had repressed in his dismay at the recent procedure, returning to him the reason why he was here and not suffering in some cold gutter instead. Only vaguely did he feel his body being dried with towels, and his seared nostrils register the sour, scorching odor of bleach as the bathroom was mopped clean, disinfected of biological waste. In all it did not matter…little could in the current, abominable situation. After a time his arms were slung about the shoulders of the woman and her brother, and cautiously the two half-carried, half-led him out of the fumigating area into the living room, where blankets had been laid out upon the carpet before the couch. There the siblings carefully laid him down, and the clone noted the warm scent of wool and the feathery sensation of a sheet being laid across his pelt, which quickly became saturated with perspiration. Out of his peripheral vision, he saw bowls placed beside him: one empty and to be used in case of future stomach revolts, the other full of cool water. From the corners of his tearing eyes the psychic saw pale, feminine hands dip into the latter bowl and pull from its opaque depths a washrag – the human's slender fingers twisted the cloth, wringing it of excess liquid, and then there was a sensation he could not recall having ever felt before: another person's _bare_ hands upon his face.

The wanderer rebelled immediately, turning free and fleeing the gentle touch; he did not want her to learn the contours of his expression, did not wish her clean hands to grace his sullied fur, drenched in sweat and unforgivable sin. Yet Anne's hand reached out again, patting for him, and finding his shoulder she grasped him and turned him over onto his back once more, regardless that such a position was hardly comfortable for him. Although he could tuck his tail between his legs, his secondary neck was only so malleable…but ultimately the woman had far more deliberation in her movements than he did, as well as strength that she could manipulate as she saw fit. She lifted his heavy head with her wet hands, scooting forward enough to tuck her folded legs beneath his skull, her knees very lightly clasping the tubular mutation as she provided support for his head and entrapped him in her grip. The woman whispered to him quietly to relax, or she would have Joseph fetch an intravenous drip and a catheterizing unit to stick him on for being so uncooperative. As this would be a low blow to his ego and his physical comfort, she mused that it would not be pleasant for him, and laughed somewhat as the clone growled softly and stilled in her grip. There was nothing alluring about the demeaning idea; he refused to entertain it, even if the alternative would be to be at the mercy of a female who knew nothing of how inappropriate her concern for his condition was. His amethyst eyes, barely open as they peered directly up into her bowed face, became softer with sorrow and remorse…if she understood what he truly was, what he had done, would she treat him so tenderly? Would she gently pat the chilled and soothing cloth to his face with the attentiveness of a mother attending to her fevered child? Would her lips twist into such a concerned frown, or her aura emanate with a pulse of fear for his health? Was she scared, he wondered, that he was going to perish because of his choice? She would not be the first to find dismay in the thought of his demise, but in this case, he found the idea demented; for it was his past mistakes that had doomed not only him but her as well. That was why he was here…to implore forgiveness, even though he knew it was an impossible gift to obtain.

How could she ever find the benignity within herself to _not_ hate the person responsible for the loss of her sight…?

The room reflected in his watering eyes seemed suffocating with its heavy overtone of grey; the dim light that had filled the area had shifted into a sunless day. The first snow was falling upon the world he wandered over, and as he trailed from the filthy alleyways of the capital into the northern Routes, shunning the various trainers who boasted a full set of Badges now that the annual Indigo League was winding down to completion, he passed as a phantom though the boney trees of Viridian Forest. Many of the trunks had been skinned of their bark by the hungry herbivores who couldn't sustain their multiple stomachs on the withering grass beneath their hooves, and the pale scars reflected those within his wounded, yearning soul. The clone, feeling craving growing in his mind, walked onwards upon one of the rises to the nearby shrine of the forest, where children looking to be the masters of their slaves pleaded their gods for good fortune, wealth, and fame, and took no true steps to gain it with their own two hands. The area was vacated currently, and he drifted through the hallowed grounds with an amused smirk spreading across his face at the thought of defiling the area with his ungodly presence. Ignoring the stretches of steps leading back to the city, he approached the site of the rendezvous he had planned with some of Team Rocket's most notable dealers. Entering the small clearing, he saw the two men in their earlier thirties there, with wild, greasy hair, and sporting ebony and red outfits with patches of deceptively pure white. Spying his cloaked figure drifting into the glen, they walked towards him with confident grins and the three got to business….

At the same moment the negotiations were being made, a trio of high school girls in their winter outfits raced up the steps to the shrine to pray for aid in keeping their New Year's Resolutions. Their puffs of moist breath trailed from their smiling mouths like smoke from a dragon's snout, and their laughter carried through the freezing air as they joked and gossiped over the antics of others students on their holiday breaks, and over how grueling the approaching tests might be when they returned to school. They lamented the qualities of the teachers certain to try to break them with the fine points of the material they'd given the older teenagers, and blessed the ones who allowed them to use some of their notes when concerning formulas in advanced science and mathematics. They were a varied three, the best friends; one of black, glossy hair and tanned skin, even in late December; another with corn-gold locks corkscrewing down her face, and bright blue, shining eyes; and the last, the quietest of the trio, with light brown hair and a mellow expression on her face. She too shrieked with the others as a hard gust of wind nearly knocked them from the stone steps before the shrine plateau, and held her hat firmly over her ears with her gloved hands. After the wind had died down, she clutched her crème coat around herself tighter, and wrapped her white scarf about her mouth so not to breathe in the bitter chill of the air. Snowflakes caught in her eyelashes, and she raced with her companions into the still, cozy confines of the holy house to escape the cold.

Within the structure they knelt at the altar and lit a stick of incense, the ghostly thread of smoke weaving about their bundled forms. They were perfectly silent as they prayed – though one of their number thought words merely to herself and accepted the faith of her companions – and were mindful to respect that divine force within its walls. Only a good half an hour later did they emerge and begin to speak again in hushed voices. Their tones grew louder as they stepped away from the temple, and then became piercing shrieks as the overcast sky again molested them with another gust of frigid wind. This time it escaped with a hostage in its unseen hold, taking the pale one's hat from her head. Her hair spilled across her face, and moaning in annoyance she raced after her cap, ignoring the snickering of her friends behind her. The flying garment flew over the bushes into the trees of the bordering forest, and for a second she paused, hearing shouts and the sounds of battle coming from within the grove. She shouted out for the trainers within to put their fight on hold for a moment while she grabbed her cap – they did not seem to hear her. Glancing back to her friends who were shouting for her to hurry up so they could go to the café for hot chocolate, Anne Nakamura decided she would have to be a little reckless. The trainers would stop once they saw her – she would be fine. As a pedestrian, she had more rights to use the trails than vagabonds did, and they were to do everything within their power not to injure civilians in their pursuits; that was the law. She would be safe darting in to retrieve her hat – she'd only be a few seconds, and she was loath to give it up out of unreasonable fear: her mother had made it for her as a Christmas present, and it had taken the woman months to get the weave right. She wasn't going to lose something that'd had all that effort put into it, especially not after just a few days has passed! Besides, it was warm and soft - her ears would get frostbite without it…!

So she charged though the bushes, cursing as she did so, and leapt into the clearing where her cap had fallen. She snatched it up swiftly, and then felt something of considerable weight sweep past her. She glanced up as she reared backwards in shock, taking in the startling sight before her in slow motion as it landed: a bipedal cat wrapped in a cloak held two syringes in his loose paw, his vivid amethyst eyes staring back at her with the intensity of merciless hunter. Like a javelin, fear speared through her at the intimidating appearance of the malevolent entity, and so she twisted around, prepared to sprint back to the shrine to her friends, away from the feral creature. Only after she had turned away from the feline did she hear the stomach-jerking sound of a viper's devilish hiss; the purple Arbok, with flinty eyes flashing, had flung itself towards its opponent, its jaw unhinged and fangs glistening with venom – and the innocent woman had made the unfortunate mistake in stumbling into its way. Its attack was already rising in its gullet, unable to be choked off if its trainer had cared to order it to do so, and the student glimpsed the dark shapes of the snake's human masters and their other pokemon before the toxic sludge flew from the goliath serpent's mouth into her face. After the hit Anne Nakamura's mind collapsed under the sudden, flaring pain burning across the skin of the bridge of her nose and over her eyes – she shrieked in the feeling of stinging fire searing into her corneas, the acid eating at the cells and polluting them with their toxin. She clawed at her eyes, desperate to scrape the sticky residue from her flesh, trying to blink it from her gaze. Yet though her tear ducts exhausted their fluids attempting to clear her vision of the dark sludge, the blackness was never banished from her vision.

Over her screams she did not hear the Team Rocket agents recall their teams and flee the area before someone could investigate the source of the agonized howling of the writhing girl. However, she could feel that the entity did not depart as they did; he remained, watching the student choke on her tears and twist upon the frozen ground, her fingers clawing the dead grass like talons as she cried for help from her friends. She was experiencing unimaginable suffering, helpless to anesthetize the chemical burn, having made an irrevocable mistake in intervening in the waging battle…but the wanderer felt nothing for her. No pity, no sympathy, no compassion: there was nothing inside of him capable of caring if the exposure to venom maimed or even killed her, and he refrained from teleporting her to a hospital as he was capable of doing. The unusual pokemon clone merely observed her wordlessly, his mouth curling into a sneer of disgust: the display was pathetic to him, an example of a weak being not worth saving. She was valueless to him in that winter past; and she would remain inutile for years to his ruminations. In a low growl he questioned her upon her motives in tearing through the trees to her doom…but she only whimpered piteously, unable to form words to answer his inquiry.

Upon hearing the approach of her two companions, the drifter slid into the frosted shadows before they arrived in the scarred glen. He heard their gasps of horror, heard one of the females hurriedly dial for an ambulance upon her cell phone; then together the friends carried their companion back to the shrine. As precious minutes passed, the chemical substance ate the ailed one's flesh while making threads of steam float from her eyes; the loner observed how her follows tried to wash the adhesive ingredients of liquid hell from her face. To an extent the two were successful – the advance of the acid was slowed - but not until the paramedics arrived was Anna Nakamura fully cleansed of the toxic sludge. Unfortunately, by the time the chemicals had been halted in their destructive progression, irreparable damage had been done to the girl's vision. She cried out tears of blood, an unwilling victim of stigmata, her sclera crimson and her corneas smoky. The others could only pray that she would heal and regain her sight, but even in that initial hour hope was low for full recovery. As the ambulance raced from the scene of the maiming, the psychic understood that such a miracle would be impossible.

The woman-to-be would never see the dawn of the New Year….

His vision, as hers never would, cleared itself of the memory. Gazing up into the female's face he felt a dense weight settle across his chest, a boulder of iron, an additional pain to the dull blades slicing his insides. Yet persevering, gritting his teeth, he tentatively pulled his right arm from beneath the slip of the sheet covering him, his eyes tracing the marks running up the limb as he raised his paw, his fingertips coming to grace the woman's scars in feather-light strokes. Anne jerked in her surprise, but did not pull back from his touch, though her eyelids widened in shock and she shook for a moment in transient dismay. Her mouth trembled and she opened it as if to ask him what he was doing, but she never brought herself to question the gentle act. She merely wrung the rag once more in the now lukewarm waters of the bowl, and the excess droplets rolled down the wanderer's sweaty face and around his muzzle as she pressed the saturated cloth to his facial fur. The ticking of the grandfather clock's needle hand down the hall counted off the awkward seconds, and then finally the clone allowed his arm to fall back to his side, releasing her from the brushings of his fingers. Still staring up at her however, he murmured, _"I am sorry, Anne."_

After a moment she titled her head at him inquisitively. "…Why?"

"_For months until this night, I have upheld a lie and treated you as a naïve individual as I exploited your inability to see my form, merely for a fleeting taste of normalcy. Now I burden you with caring for me, as I should have known you would desire instead of wisely turning me aside,"_ he said, tracking how strands of her hair brushed her cheeks and the curve of her neck…her sweet perfume of apples drifted into his nostrils, delicious enough to make him salivate. With a heavy sigh he went on in a far softer voice, _"…But perhaps most damning of my offenses against you: I inflicted yours scars upon you; had it not been for me, you would not have lost your sight. Therefore, I am sorry, Anne."_

This whispered confession was met with utter silence: Anne did not abruptly shove him away from her, did not scream obscenities synonymous for him, nor did she strike him with rancor for his stealing away her vision. Confusion arose within him at her perfect wordlessness, and at the way she frowned and closed her sightless, lilac eyes for a moment. When she stroked his face again with the cloth, she murmured, "I know you are…you wouldn't have found me again or tortured yourself like this if you didn't feel remorse, right?"

His eyes widened minutely before comprehension dawned. _"So even after the chaos you experienced during the attack, even after seven years have gone by, you remembered the sound of my voice?"_ How else could she have recognized him without her sight? In the gloom he supposed it was indicative of his identity well enough, for telepathy smoothed a voice, adding depth and quality to his baritone; it was seemingly as if he spoke from within a cavern, for his voice faintly echoed in the hollow areas of foreign minds which were receptive to telepathic thought. In truth, due to the manner of his speech he could speak with any being, for although he thought in his native language, the meaning of his musings would translate into comprehensive words and images once entering another brain he wished to discuss matters with. So it made perfect sense that she would recall the precise details of the strange invasion of her mind, even through a living hell, for like any true voice his had its own unique elements that reflected his being. In answer to his question Anne nodded, and told him that she had mulled over her last moments of sight innumerable times while she had lain in a hospital bed in convalescence. That she had managed to retain that glimpse of him for seven years, as well as the melodic sound of his voice, was unavoidable as a result. Hearing this, Mewtwo's expression contorted; another wave of pain ripped through his body, and he suppressed with difficultly the urge to regurgitate. Once the attack had passed, his brow furrowing into deep creases as he flinched at the ache of his stomach and ribcage, he asked, _"Then why do you do this? Why would you care for a creature you have every reason to abhor?"_

Her fingers gently traced the lines of his face as she murmured, "…I care because I got over hating you a long time ago."

The vagabond did not understand. How could he - who had never been able to justify surrendering his hatred of those who had wronged him - possibly comprehend her lack of such befittingly loathing? _"Explain it to me, Anne."_

He wanted to know, wanted to comprehend how she could let her hate go. So Anne told him her side of the story; a side he had once never cared to learn, nor had the opportunity to do so. She described the excruciating pain of the poison burning into her flesh, the frenzy of the doctors trying to stop it from seeping into her retinas and then into her nerves, and how she had eventually been sedated and operated on. The surgeons had removed the dead flesh from her face and had placed skin grafts across the chemical burns after they had done all they could to encourage healing. Yet the head operator had been able to determine immediately that nothing could be done to restore her sight: too many of her cells had been damaged, and the cones and rods of her photoreceptors had been rendered unusable through acid exposure when the liquid cavities within her eyes had been contaminated. Over the course of a month the scars and Anne's fury at the entire world had formed, held in perfect blackness, as she thought of all the things now denied to her: never against would she see the changes in the celestial painting of the sky, nor the jeweled life of both the land and sea. She would never again see the faces of those she loved and would come to love, nor would she be able to drive through the city to choose the items she needed for both pleasure and continued life. She would never be able to enjoy the graphic wonder of the theaters, watch flames dance within a warm hearth, or be able to witness the most memorable moments of her existence: her graduation, her potential marriage, of the stirring children who might come of a now unlikely union.

As her despair deepened, so did her anger: for even though her parents were tracking down the culprits and had discovered their affiliations, and then even as they received millions from a crime lord who did not wish to be disturbed by court systems, money would not bring back her sight. It was well outside the realms of current medical possibility, and so she took no comfort in the fact that her family was ensuring that she would live comfortably from now on, even if handicapped. As she slowly learned how to live with her blindness, she had fought for independence from those around her, as well as denied the security of a guide dog. She had enough pride to rebel against those who pitied her, and in this time when she desperately needed support, she found out who truly cared for her and who did not. Friends she had thought would help her through the adjustment period slowly started to cease visiting her, and those who she'd never known were strong enough to handle being around her stayed. She did not make things easy of course: in her fury she pushed others from her with surly words and her temperament, hiding when she broke down to cry, and lashed out more often than not. Those who didn't abandon her initially she slowly shoved away, until only the most stubborn and loving were left, still trying to reach out to her.

Eventually, she calmed herself, but her potent apathy remained. She hated the people who had done this to her and the doctors who couldn't help her. She hated those who had left her alone in their discomfort, even though she herself had half-forced their choice. She hated her family for coddling her and saying things would be okay when they wouldn't be. She hated the gods and then God Himself for daring to twist this fate upon her when she was entering the prime of her life. Yet most of all she hated herself: she hated her useless eyes, she hated her inability to even do the simplest things alone, and she hated the decision that had led her to this. Why hadn't she used common sense and waited until the battle was over? Why hadn't she let the damned hat be? Eventually she began to honestly contemplate committing suicide, although she did so half-heartedly; it wasn't as if she'd ever have the chance to, and she didn't feel like hurting her loved ones that terribly for something they couldn't have controlled. Yet it came to the point that if some accident were to occur to end her life, she welcomed the idea. She just didn't care anymore…!

Then, almost on the anniversary of the disaster, a thought stuck her: there was no use hating the world for something that could not be changed. If she wanted to live her life again, she would have to do it bravely and in darkness, rather than fester here with impotent thoughts on regaining the light. Furthermore, she realized that the pain she'd been inflicting upon herself and others served no true purpose; all her despair had done was to gratify her frustration and allow her to continue to lament what she had lost. But that raging grief hadn't made her feel any happier or content: it just swallowed her whole and sickened both her soul and body, until she became a mote of the person she had been. It was a waste of her energy to continue on this way, and so, though it was hard at first, she began to let go of her fury. She began to accept the hand she had been dealt and move on, reestablishing bonds, and at some point even making jokes about her condition that weren't self-deprecating. The longer she spend her time in a positive manner, the more she reached an understanding of what had happened, until eventually her hatred faded into pity for those who had maimed her. She remembered the needles the pokemon had been holding, and knew of the gang those humans had been a part of was involved in drug smuggling and dealing. Obviously the sale had gone wrong to elicit an attack like that, and for what: for money and a chemical high? It seemed to her a terribly shallow way to live, with that greed, even more hopeless than her own situation. As she made that revelation she began to regain the goodness she had once possessed, until she was even a better person then she had been before. Losing her sight had made her understand people and life better…and in that way, in the wisdom she had been given – which she might never have understood before - she supposed that not being able to see could be construed as a positive loss.

Yet that did not mean she wouldn't do nearly _anything_ to be able to see a sunset, in all its vivid, gorgeous glory, once more….

She smiled wistfully as she murmured the last statement, then pressed a warm palm to the clone's cheek lightly and laughed somewhat, "You know, I've never told anyone all of that before; but I suppose you merit it, considering that you practically crawled back to me to apologize. You weren't even the one who spat the toxin into my face, but you still blame yourself for it: that shows you feel more guilt over the matter than even those trainers did," Anne said with a sigh. In response the clone merely peered up at her, for once not knowing how to reply to all she had said. The conclusions she had formed seemed inconceivable to him, yet her sincerity had been evident in the undertone of her voice, and showed itself upon the smooth curves of her face. As she wiped the perspiration from his sleek fur again, one of her arms holding onto him as he quivered from withdrawal, he mused that he did not deserve to be in the presence of one so saintly. Yet he allowed her to do what she wished to help him heal, like she had, from the extraction of the blackness in his heart….

Beyond them, Dr. Joseph Nakamura stood within the hall, having listened to his younger sister's conveyance of her story to the tormented one. His hands trembled slightly as he was unintentionally disclosed of the things Anne had thought and felt in the horrible time during her recovery, for though he had suspected that her pain had run deep, he had not known how far it had extended…or of how she had finally managed to anesthetize herself to her self-inflicted torture. The mug of tea he had wanted to try to get into the pokemon, to provide the creature with fluid and some nourishment, had long since gone cold in his hands. Slowly he peered around the edge of the wall into the living room to look at the two within: he noted how the clone rested against the woman, as well as how she smiled down upon him warmly, despite the torment the drifter had caused her. Little things in her actions gave tiny details of her true thoughts and emotions away: the tenderness of her touches, the faint glow in her sightless eyes, and the soft tone of her voice. The creature looking up at her seemed utterly engrossed in what she whispered to him. Straining to here the now low words, he caught the statement that was the most profound: "…So I forgive you, okay?"

The brother closed his eyes…there was something integral here, as small as it was, which hinted at something so much more than he wanted to know. He forced himself to shove his growing suspicions of his sister's affections aside, walking into the room loudly and not liking how awkward he felt in feeling as if he were interrupting something intimate. He handed his sibling the cup of tea as well as the crackers in the box under his arm: if the pokemon could hold that down, they would try the stew in an hour or so. Unfortunately, only a few moments after the woman had helped Mewtwo to drink, he began to heave, and quickly twisted over to bury his muzzle into the empty bowl to upchuck what he had just forced down. The fluid was transparent and oily, with hues of yellow from the bile and stomach acid his body was attempting to resupply. The sour odor only made the cat gag again, and fluid dripped from his nostrils and eyes. He scrambled to his paws with a moan, stumbling back down the hall to the bathroom to spill his guts into the porcelain bowl and not sully the carpet with liquid feces – that would hardly clean well, and he had gained a little energy back as the pain had ebbed, enough to have some conscious control over his bowels. He stayed on the white throne and hunched over his intestines for quite some time, and once he had emptied himself of toxic waste cleaned himself to the best of his abilities. Returning to the makeshift sickroom he succumbed to fitful sleep, and while slumbering and twitching the doctor managed to give him a light painkiller to deal with the internal cramping. The clone's muscles loosened only slightly, but it was enough to help him sleep more fully, until in the incidences when he did awaken he succeeded in retaining food and water.

During the entire time the woman stayed with him, cared for him, only sometimes drifting off beside him. Purple blotches formed under her scars, and after a time her brother placed a blanket over her and tried to ignore the fact that one of her hands was wrapped tight around one of the pokemon's paws. Yet when morning bled into the afternoon, and Mewtwo's appetite returned, alarms began to ring in the man's mind once more. As the pokemon walked with the wavering strength of an infant animal only just learning to use his limbs, the animated way she spoke to the feline, with relief and encouragement in her voice as she held him and helped support him, made the brother feel distinctly uncomfortable. If this had been a man making the recovery, he would have supposed right away that his sister's feelings ran far deeper than friendship for the male…but considering what he actually was….

As Joseph packed up his supplies, he told himself that it was impossible. He didn't allow himself to think that just before tonight he would have thought the existence of a creature like Mewtwo would have been impossible too.

Outside, the first snow fell, blanketing the city in purest white….

* * *


	4. Examinations

_**

* * *

**_

Thursday, December 8th of 2005 / 1:14 p.m.:

Mewtwo glared at the stick of wood he was trying to manipulate in his paws, the fumbling tips unable to properly break the crease between the pale, glued rods. Before him on the table was a bowl of stir-fry and a plate with samples of the sushi he most enjoyed, and while he could split the chopsticks and dine with ease through the use of his telekinesis, he was adamant on being able to break them properly with his paws. Trying to find a method that would not render the sticks into splinters was how he had occupied some of his time during the weakness and cravings of withdrawal. By focusing his frustration and thoughts upon matters of logic and ingenuity, and having taken the top scores on internet chess and poker, as well as finished several thick books of supposedly unsolvable Sudoku problems, the work of training his hands had become the object of his focus. Being a creature mostly of intellect, physical flexibility had been something unnecessary and usually avoided. Yet once his psychic powers had been temporarily shot during his convalescence, he had needed to learn how to dine through more primitive means. Although Anne had introduced him to the silverware, the chopsticks proved more of a challenge. If his lunch portions cooled and warmed any closer to room temperature he might give in and simply eat as he usually did…but until then, he was determined to find a way to split the wood even-.

The stick broke in half, sending a sliver of wood into his fingertip. Hissing slightly he brought the dull end of it to his mouth, pulling and spitting the needle aside. With a soft growl he sent the broken sticks flying into the trashcan and surrendered, using his telekinesis to break the sticks apart perfectly. His lips peeled over his teeth in a silent snarl, and he slowly began to eat his lunch, to the thanks of his stomach, which had been begging to be attended to for over an hour beforehand. The fried rice and sweet-and-sour vegetables made him involuntarily lick his chops, and he repressed a purr as he bit into one of the sushi rolls and chewed the fish meat within. Little orange eggs crunched between his teeth, like spicy kernels of poppy seeds, and he sipped his ocha slowly, enjoying the tastes. A few minutes passed in this manner of savoring the delight of satiating his hunger, until the two landline phones rang, one of which was placed on the kitchen counter with the other in Anne's bedroom. As if his psychical voice could possibly be heard over an electronic feed, the woman called out that she would pick up, and he heard her soft, "Hello?" from down the hall. She had ordered a book in Brail from the local library, and on her day off had been thoroughly delighting in it until that point. In the following half an hour he respectfully refrained from eavesdropping on her conversation, for he could see from the caller identification included in the device that her brother was on the other line. Occasionally certain terms caught in his ears: "Christmas reunion" was the one most often uttered. Apparently, it was an annual tradition for the Nakamura family members to take a break from their work and gather for the holiday weekend, which became rife with gift-giving, personal news, and friendly gossip. Anne was expected to come even if she couldn't eat some of the traditional treats or see the usual decorations that were indicative of the celebration. She had expressed to the clone her excitement over spending time with her family once again, and so it caught his attention when her voice altered from her happy, giddy tone to something far less pleasant:

"What do you mean, you all would rather I not bring him?"

The telepath, upon realizing he was being discussed, lifted his head. Chewing the last bite of his lunch, he watched as Anne's door slowly slid shut, muffling her words behind the wooden barrier: and though he could still make them out, not being able to hear the other side of the conversation scarcely gave him the clarity of what was being debated. As he took his dishes to the sink, he slowly picked up the receiver with his telekinesis and brought the wireless phone to his ears, and found that neither of the participants of the argument had heard the line opening - the heated words they were exchanging with each other deafened them to the fact. He frowned as he began to follow the conversation between the siblings, his eyes becoming unfocused as he washed the dishes carefully with a soap-saturated sponge underneath the flow of warm water.

"…_Anne, I'm sorry, but none of the family approves of your current arrangement with that pokemon. By yourself you've proved you can live quite comfortably with your one job and on disability, but supporting two fully grown adults – it doesn't seem reasonable! I know you care about him, but you can't deny you're living under quite a few more expenses than before. The necessary food to sustain someone of his mass, the electronic equipment and excess of water to keep him entertained and clean, as well as the sacrifices of your social sphere to keep him company…if he was a man, I'd say you were harboring a total deadbeat, but even pokemon can get jobs. He could be helping you, but instead he goes through your resources like a-."_

Her response sounded incredulous. "Would you rather I kick him out and have him live like he was before: without a home, fearing that he'd get captured and made into a child's toy, and never knowing if he would get a proper meal into his stomach each night?"

Joseph sighed. _"Look, if he was a seeing-eye dog or a pet, lavishing you with attention and actually serving some purpose, even with our misgivings about pokemon we wouldn't have a real problem with it. However, he pursues his own interests while leeching off you; he doesn't eat kibble; and from what I've surmised, he could take your head off at any time if you annoy him. He's a dangerous stray, Anne. It doesn't matter how sophisticated and cultured he sounds, he's not safe-."_

"He wouldn't hurt me, Joseph! He's been living with me for months, and never once-."

"_But he could surprise you at any time,"_ Her brother pointed out, _"I think his junkie tendencies should have proven that point-."_

"Mewtwo hasn't done anything like that since then! Damn it, Joseph, it's my choice to support him, to provide him a secure place to call home – and he's a hell of a lot better company than most-."

"_If you wanted company Anne, you could always stay with our parents or me – you did when you were in college, and-."_

Sarcasm was inlaid heavily in her voice as she cut in. "That's funny coming from someone who bought me an expensive place with a scenic view I can't even enjoy, all the way across the city from him-."

Joseph growled in respond._ "Don't act like we shipped you off out of our way, Anne – we just knew you hated feeling like you couldn't run your own life. Besides, it's not as if we got you a place in the Projects: you're in a nice neighborhood, and you know the reason you got those two floors was so you wouldn't have to deal with anyone upstairs keeping you awake. We wanted to do what we thought was best for your sake-."_

"Yeah, you did, and I went along with it because it'd be rude as hell to turn down an apartment like this, all expenses paid by the cash you guys were bribed with by the local Gym Leader. But that's the problem, Joseph – you all just try to do 'what's best for me,' like I'm some child who can't make her own decision, and you do it just because my eyes don't work! Why don't you understand that just because I'm blind doesn't mean I'm helpless? You wonder why I like Mewtwo's company so much, despite the comments he sometimes makes: it's because _he _doesn't hover over me, trying to do every little goddamn thing for me, and _he_ doesn't treat me like a pity case…and yes, even if I can't see how you look at me, I can sure as hell feel it! But _he_ doesn't do that – he respects me even though I'm-."

"_How the hell do you know he's not just using you, Anne?"_

"…I just know. He never asks me for anything; I give him what I think he'll enjoy because for once it means I can do something for someone else-."

"_Have you slept with him?"_ The doctor asked in a perfectly bland tone.

The woman was evidently taken aback. "What…?" Yet she charged on after her initial surprise, her tone scorching to the ears. "Joseph, what the _fuck_ type of question is _THAT_? That isn't any of your business! I'm twenty-four years old; I've been a legal adult for over half a decade – shit, I don't have to answer to you whether or not I've had sex with my roommate. That's crossing a line, Joseph!"

"_Look, you don't know if he's carrying any type of disease – considering he used to shoot, he could-."_

"Oh, don't pretend _that's_ what you give a damn about! I'm sure you checked his blood and found squat – otherwise you would throw out some lethal infection at me to ward me away from getting frisky with him. No, you just hate the idea that maybe your sister isn't so narrow-minded to believe she'll get struck down by lightning for daring to get involved with-."

The man yelled over her words in rage, _"He's a pokemon, Anne, not a human! __The Holy Bible__ says-!"_

"That book also says divorce is punishable by death, and that was in the New Testament. I notice that didn't stop you from breaking your marriage with Marie."

"_It's not nearly the same thing! This isn't _MORAL_, Anne! Bestiality is for perverts you can't get some from regular–,"_ He paused, and then asked in reproach, _"Is _that_ what this is? Is this your way of getting back at all those men who-."_

"_They_ have nothing to do with it! But you know what? Mewtwo's a hell of a better guy than any of them were, even with his slightly animalistic tendencies-."

"_Jesus Christ, Anne, you're acting as though he's a _man_ who honestly gives a damn about you; which he isn't and he doesn't! He probably just sees you as someone to suck the life from until you've got nothing left to give him. I'll bet you he wouldn't even stay with you after-."_

She interrupted him with a hiss. "Don't you _dare_! Don't you _dare_ try to belittle the relationship I have with him! Even if it's _not_ something you can understand, it is a _positive_ bond. Furthermore, he's not the type of creature you think he is."

"_Really? How do I know? You're sounding like an infatuated schoolgirl, and we both know how clearly they see the object of their affections."_ There was a pause on the other line, lasting long enough for the older sibling to level his anger enough to sound concerned, _"…Anne? Are you still there?"_

Her voice was softer, wearier as she answered: "…I finally found someone I like, and you can't just be happy for me, can you? He touched my scars, Joseph. You all never did, you just…you tried to act as if the accident was something to shun, like a death you didn't want to bring up. But I got over it…I - the one who was really suffering - got over it enough to take it with a grain of salt. Yet you all treated the subject as if it was some sort of taboo, even though it really isn't. Mewtwo and I…he has every reason to want to avoid the topic, but he doesn't. He lets me talk about it and listens to me without growing uncomfortable. Even when I told him I was starting to forget things like light and color, and incidences I haven't memorized in my thoughts…he didn't move away because he felt awkward. You all…you say you care about me, love me, and I'm sure you do. But it's not the same as it used to be, Joseph…you all need to stop acting like nothing happened."

"_Anne-."_

"I'll think I'll stay home this Christmas. I doubt Mewtwo's ever had one, which is an awful shame, don't you agree?"

"_Wait, Anne-."_

"Bye, Joseph. I'll call you soon, okay?"

She hung up on her sibling.

Slowly, the clone in the other room replaced the receiver on its stand, not caring that the man on the other line would realize he had listened in on the entire conversation. What the doctor thought of him had already been made abundantly clear, and while he was hardly concerned with public opinion on his person, the words Anne and her brother had traded made him stare into the soapy waters his paws were submerged in with a frown. Rinsing off the dishes and drying them, he watched as the pearly suds swirled down the drain in a miniscule whirlpool, and placing the plate and bowl back in the cupboards he headed deeper into the house, coming to stand outside of the master bedroom beside the grandfather clock…he could here sobbing from within. Discomfort made him grimace; but the prospect of the tears he had never become acquitted to didn't dissuade him from slipping into the room. The walls, he noted as he swept his gaze over the simple space, was like the rest in the apartment, golden-brown and warmer than the off-white carpet below them. In the corner where he was, the wall to his left held a table with a small pile of CDs, along with a music player for the disks, and just beyond the setup was the door to the bathroom, propped open somewhat. To his right were the sliding doors that led into the closet containing her clothes; while the far wall possessed yet another exit, this one onto the fenced balcony. In the center of the final wall before him protruded Anne's bed, queen-sized and covered in pale blue covers, at its center cradling a half-finished book. The woman herself was clutching the edge of her nightstand, which bore no lamp, but instead held her alarm clock and radio, as well as her phone.

As he took in the sight of her, he watched as small droplets rolled down from her blank eyes and her shoulders shake slightly. Her breathing was hitched with her attempts to regain control of herself, but she seemed too furious and upset to succeed in the desire. For Mewtwo, the yearning to comfort another creature was utterly foreign – not only were people unlikely to come to him for solace, but he did not know how to provide it anyhow. He had no experience in the giving consolation, for the few he had cared enough about to be willing to make such an attempt had always chosen other companions for reassurance, being either too intimidated by him or too ashamed of showing weakness to him. None had trusted him with their hearts or their uncertainties…not until this woman. Perhaps she was a fool and Joseph would be proven right. Perhaps he would someday turn on her or leave her to pursue other goals. Yet for now her weeping enraged him; she was a strong creature - why would she allow someone to reduce her to this because they found her decisions distasteful? The answer was obvious to him: it was because she loved those people. Hers was a social race, and unlike him she was not someone who enjoyed living in isolation. Some of her kind could exist in solitude, but she was not one who could survive without interactions with other beings. That the people she cared for so deeply resented her current lifestyle and would not accept her as she was…it was wounding to her psyche and her spirit.

With a soundless sigh, he walked up behind her, softly placing a paw upon her shoulder to give her some sort of acknowledgement that she was not alone. He scarcely knew how to react when she suddenly turned to him and buried her face into his boney chest, her arms pressed to his front and her fingers digging into his fur. The hot wetness of her tears began to soak him, and she sniffled and gasped occasionally from the turbulent emotions writhing within her. Awkwardly the clone wrapped one arm about her shoulders, his other hanging uselessly at his side. She quivered in his hold, and after a few minutes murmured out an apology for saturating him. He murmured that it was fine – it would take a shorter time for him to clean up than she would. Her laughter was broken as she heard that, and she blurted out quietly that he smelled like cinnamon. Though she could not see it, he stared down at her incredulously for the comment, and for a time neither of them spoke. Then, softly, he asked if he truly was as much of a hindrance upon her life as her brother had suggested. His companion did not appear to be surprised that he had overheard the conversation, whether she associated the familiarity with his sharp hearing or with sounds he might have made on his side of the line he did not know. She shook her head, her silky locks tickling the flesh just beneath his thin pelt. "I make more than enough to keep two people happy and healthy…Joseph knows that. You just make him nervous. Besides, I like taking care of another person…if you're not insulted with me saying I do so to you."

He did not respond to that, merely commenting, _"…He is right…I could always return to how I used to live. I have become indulgent in this soft place of yours…it is not particularly fair to you, Anne."_

"I rather think I've made a fair trade. I have someone welcoming me home at the end of the day, someone who I can share my meals with…hell, you make use of the things I never use: that studio room, for one thing, along with the computer…and you don't treat me like a pity case, which is always appreciated."

The corners of his mouth tugged downwards in a frown. _"You do not deserve to be pitied, woman. Certainly, your condition is a shameful waste, but commiserating one who deals with it so admirably? No, that strength is not to be mocked. It is…aggravating to know others regard it in a different light,"_ he stated, and then released her slowly. _"…Perhaps you should go and spend the afternoon with some of your friends, Anne. We would not wish you to make 'sacrifices in your social sphere' for my sake, correct?"_

She smiled. "Yeah…yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Wouldn't want the family to drag me down. Thanks."

Then Anne Nakamura did something that left Mewtwo speechless. Tentatively she reached to him and found his muzzle, and then leaning upwards pecked the side of his face with her lips shortly. In was a fleeting gesture of gratitude, yet for one such as the wanderer, who had never before felt the shocking delight of any type of kiss – whether chaste or not – the momentary sensation stunned him. One of her hands, lingering a little too long upon his arm, also was indicative of things he had never truly considered before concerning her, and gazing into her face and seeing a faint blush spread across it, the words of her brother echoed within his mind. Though the soft touches were innocent, a show of appreciate for doing what didn't come naturally of the loner, they hinted at a subtle interest; it was a silent display of possibilities concerning how their bond could potentially deepen between them. As she departed with her fellow alumni a quarter of an hour later, the hidden pokemon watched the door close with a contorted expression which mingled his wonderment concerning her and his unsettlement. They were not of the same species of creature, not even in the same Order of mammals…and yet it was clear to him that his view of her was not that they were friends. Yes, they got along fairly well, but always beneath their formalities was a level of curiosity when concerning the other. They were not so sweet of companions because what warmth they felt for one another was not so virtuous.

Sitting back in the chair before the computer that Anne could barely use, the clone folded his fingers of his paws before his muzzle, pondering the matter truly for the first time. The concept of taking a mate, a lover, whatever one might name a being who one had a physical relationship with, had never truly occurred to him before except in abstract musings. For one thing, touch was something he rarely gave or receive…in fact, the incidences where another's bare hands had graced his pelt was countable upon one of his own paws in the recent past. In the presence of the female he now lived with, the amount had doubled, and did not appear to be halting anytime soon, though their touches were not sensual in nature. For another matter, he had been virtually sterile when he was younger – he had taken pills with his daily rations that he had been told were vitamins, though they actually contained a substance which curbed sexual impulses and his own gamete production necessary in successful breeding. Once he had stopped using the substance, the shift had been immediate, but by that point he had come to view the matter of reproduction and coitus as a filthy alternative to the purer elements used in making new life artificially. He did not want to degrade himself with such an act, nor be in such a vulnerable and animal state – it was beneath him, as a creature run on his intellect. Once he had let go of his cynical egotism, he had merely not thought sex to be fitting for a creature as unnatural as he. If he would have been able to forgo the other natural essentials as food, drink, and air, he would have…but ultimately, while a body could survive without indulging in carnal pleasures of the flesh, sustaining ones person through sustenance was essential for life. These were the brief views he took on the matter of courtship and eventual bedding of another creature: he did not find the matter worthy of him, or himself worthy of it. As of such, he had given it minimal consideration and at times blatantly ignored the possibility, with the exception of when it had been forced upon him by scenes he had accidentally stumbled upon in his wanderings in the metropolis.

Yet now he had to reconsider it for Anne Nakamura's sake: if there was no possible way he would ever have an interest in pursuing her in such a manner, she should know, if only for the sake of settling the strain between her and her family, as well as leaving her free to bear interest in other males of her own kind. While they were hardly bound together now, interest would keep Anne from regarding men of her own kind if she did indeed find him appealing. She bore fidelity even when she had no reason to be romantically loyal, and with a sigh he turned on the computer, bringing up the internet connection and letting one of the search engines load so he could start researching the matter. Though he had gone over the basic biological principles of these types of liaisons - with the required necessities and desired outcomes - for an understanding of what drove creature to engage in what appeared to be an uncomfortable act (and for comparisons with immaculate conceptions), he knew very little of the variations between forms of pleasuring between a pair. Furthermore, he did not know anything about his own tastes concerning the matter: he had never had any inclination to figure it out before. He had simply never been in the company of someone who might find him attractive – though he would admit others found him somewhat charismatic, his form itself being handsome to the eyes of some, he thought of himself to be of abominable ugliness, as a cat made to look like a human.

Fortunately for him, seventy percent of the internet was pornographic in nature. It merely took a few adjustments to the settings of the search engine to browse for sites and images suggestive in nature, and for much of the first hour he scrolled through the pages in mounting boredom and disgust. Much of what he found was not in good taste, and he immediately began to find his boundaries in the subject. Males were not in his category of cravings – he knew others found it to their preference, but the concept of mimicking the connection between those of opposite genders through that insertion of one's member into the anus of another, or allowing the other to take a genital into the mouth and tongue until orgasm was reached…it did not appeal to his desires. It did not seem altogether the most cleanly or respectful thing to inflict upon a partner, though the partners usually enjoyed it in a mutual way. Moving on to simply females, having established his heterosexuality firmly, he skimmed through various pictures, slightly surprised to find sites with pokemon in various poses, chained or otherwise, engaging in such displays. Apparently, people into "furries" preferred watching animals, or participating with animals, in the matter of coition. It looked equally painful and pleasurable to both parties, considering the size difference and the variations between the organs, and he found himself gnashing his teeth as he found himself a bit more informed about the topic than he wished to be. With a shake of his head, he persevered, searching through various species to try to discover what his preferences were in certain females.

He quickly came to understand that his viewpoints on the matter were picky. Quadrupeds, even other felines, did not appeal to him…not because they were not sultry in aspects or even because it would be somewhat awkward with his bipedal frame to mate with them…the reason, he found, was somewhat more sentimental. If he were to engage in such activities with another creature, he wanted two small things: to be able to hold and be held completely by that person, and also to be able to watch the expression changes upon her face in the varying tones of bliss, desire, and joy. Such things, he understood, were hardly necessary for a mating: the more violent sites containing scenes of bondage and rape made it perfectly evident that consent did not have to be given by a partner in order to mate with them. Yet Mewtwo found he did not wish to cause another pain – he did not want to have to endure shrieks of fear and hurt, to feel someone trying to shove him out and away, or be damaged in the process. As of such, the idea of forcing someone beyond his age range to have sex – a young child or elderly adult – only made him recoil. No, he found the ideal of acceptance and conscious thought to the act to be more appealing…perhaps he simply did not run on base levels when it came to carnality, unlike in battle, but it was not what he would want. So these realizations narrowed down his options further, and as he found himself beginning to find a more comfortable field of research, the tension in his body ebbed. He would want a female close to his shape and size, someone he would not injure in the act, someone who would willingly embrace him…preferably one that would not encourage him try more bizarre methods of satiating a sexual appetite. That left, roughly, a few species of pokemon…and, of course, humans.

The comprehension that women, and not simply bitches of other pokemon races, were within his range of tastes was somewhat disturbing to the clone. Yet he could not deny that his skin warmed somewhat when he managed to find his way more to poses in artwork rather than raunchy photographs. Nor could he fight the knowledge that he preferred the idea that his potential partner had it within her capacity to understand his imaginative theories; as well as find his philosophical ponderings to have meaning, not foolish dreams that took time away from hunting and other primitive doings that was on the minds of so many of his fellow Order. It was not that his trust for members of the species was any greater now, or would ever be – it merely meant that if sex became a factor in his life, it was likely that he would find himself more drawn to adult human women in their prime years. Now that he knew that though, he was forced to wonder…was it possible? Would that part of his person, when slid from the internal sheath of his pelvis, be compatible with the genitalia of a woman? Logic said the shape would be scarcely different from that of a human male's, perhaps tapering towards the end if other feline phalluses were taken into consideration, but…size and the possibility of a barb at its end was something that concerned him. As stated before, he did not wish to do any harm to any partner he might take…if he had faith enough in her to treat him well in that frail position, then he would wish to do no differently to her. There was, of course, a fairly simple way to discover what lay dormant within him, but the concept rather repulsed him – which wasn't surprising considering he had never felt physical yearning before or experienced the addictive bliss of masturbation. So he searched online and eventually found on a breeder's website a proportional calculator and index of average sizes among specific species. He entered his height and weight into the machine, as well as indicated his animal Family: apparently, feline members were somewhat smaller than a human's when it came to body proportions. However, with his build he would likely be more than a needle anyhow. The result confirmed his suspicions, eliminating a few of the other species from the list he had in his mind. Humans, however, stayed near the top of the figuring.

Assuming Anne was of average size among the females of her race – six inches – and could accommodate larger males to a point before discomfort and pain made the fit impossible (after all, hardly _all_ of a length had to enter her…it rarely stayed completely buried for very long anyhow), then sex between them could work. As long as he wasn't barbed, which he somewhat doubted considering the fact that many of the more unpleasant features his body could have possessed had been removed in his genetic design, he wouldn't hurt her. Of course, this fact raised a completely new set of problems: if he could be with her safely, would he attempt to woe and mate with her? Would he attempt to see if he could somehow manage to slip into her bed, remove her clothes, and make the ultimate claim upon her? Would she even let him in if he tried? Though she might be interested, interest could just as easily fade or be completely ignored altogether. In addition, even if he did court her that was no assurance that it would go so far as to cause them to share such a complete union. Did he even want her in that way? So far, there had been none of the indications various logs and literature had informed him of. Of course, having not considered the matter before, he could have just as easily been unaware or repressing his urges and thoughts on the matter. More simply put, did she possess what he intellectually desired of a partner? As he went over her qualities, both negative and good, he confirmed that thus far he had found no reason to despise her – in fact, he even enjoyed her company more than he did being alone, and that was more than many others before her had accomplished. Yes, she was not a clairvoyant, so the possibility of a metaphysical connection that would enhance the experience between them was unlikely. In fact, beyond her blindness she had few remarkable features at all both in body and soul: she was a normal creature, with little to captivate him. However…in her mild, quiet ways, in her polite, accepting mannerisms, she displayed a level of purity that he appreciated. She was, for all her lack of exotic qualities, a strong and pleasant individual…and the more he thought about it, the more she seemed to capture a unique quality of beauty in his mind. No, he would not be averse to having her walking beside him, or even leading him in places…she already was, and he did not mind.

Of course, how could they possibly share anything more than what they currently had? Even if one ignored the world around them, which had barely managed to accept interracial couples and homosexual marriages, how could they personally deal with the concept of being with a member of a different species? Having children, he knew, was improbable, likely impossible. Though they might be able to have sex, no life could come from it – their genetics were too different, and anything that even had a chance of forming between them would be rejected by her body outright. So their union would be utterly fruitless…and he knew that Anne wanted to have a family someday. Resting his muzzle upon his intertwined paws, he leaned his elbows upon the desk, thinking. There were, of course, alternatives available: between adoption, sperm banks, and then the genetic tinkering he was capable of working, a child hardly had to come of Anne's womb. Moreover…but perhaps he was getting far ahead of himself. All that had brought this research up was a comment and a tiny kiss. There was still, after all, another matter he had to take into consideration. If either of them wanted to have a whole, happy union, the missing quality was a necessity:

That was love, simply put, and unconditional at that.

That, of course, was the biggest obstacle of all, for Mewtwo had loved only one person in the short span of his life. She had been a childhood friend, a small girl named Ai Fuji, who had taught him some of the most important things in life…a child who, until the past few years ago when his chemically induced amnesia had dissipated, he had not remembered. He now recalled well the trauma of losing his sister and mother figure, and knew that the gifts the bittersweet emotion gave were merely a pall for the eventual agony of loss. Did he wish to truly someday feel such a wretched wound again? Could he fight a growing attachment if he decided he did not wish to? With a sigh, the wanderer mused that instead of finding answers he had only mired himself further in worry. As he heard the front door behind him begin to unlock, he glanced at the small digital display of the time in the lower right-hand corner of the screen: over three hours had passed since the woman had left. He peered at it with narrowing eyes – how was that possible? It only felt as if a few minutes had gone by. Yet sure enough it was Anne who walked in, with melting snowflakes caught in her hair and her pale flesh flushed with the abuse of the freezing wind outside, and she was smiling broadly as she tore off her boots and removed her winter garments. She called out for him in a loud voice, as she did not know he was only some twenty feet away, and he greeted her monotonously and told her he was at the computer. She almost appeared to bounce as she walked towards him; when she came to a stop only a foot or so away, he could smell the ice upon her, the aroma of frosted apples swirling into his nose. The crisp scent did not clear his mind: considering how he had been thinking of her in recently minutes, and with the images and words of various pornographic sites in mind, he gritted his teeth as he had to force himself to try not to imagine the skin beneath her jeans, sweater, and now slippers. Not that he lusted for her, but hormones automatically induced the impulse he had never before been unfortunate enough to have. He might have snarled at himself if she hadn't caught his attention with her next words.

"So, what have you been up to while I was gone? Don't tell me you were checking out dirty galleries while I was getting tipsy on eggnog."

She laughed, evidently completely joking. The clone merely stared at her, his mouth twitching. Eventually, he murmured, _"Ironically, you managed to guess exactly what I was doing."_

She blinked, her smile becoming strained. "_Really_…I didn't think you were into that stuff. You didn't make a mess of my computer, did you?"

"_I avoided sites with viruses and did not…spill…anything. I was not browsing for the purpose of becoming aroused, Anne. I was merely attempting to figure out my tastes."_

She blinked. "…In three hours? It usually takes years, Mewtwo…."

"_I can be more analytical about the matter without encountered distractions. As a result, the research proved successful in providing me the information I needed."_

Anne Nakamura found her way to the couch and sat down heavily. After a few seconds, she murmured, "Okay, I'm curious – what do you like?"

He smirked at her, sensing her deep desire to know from her tone as much as she attempted to hide it with nonchalance. Rising to his feet, he answered, _"I see no reason to disclose such personal information concerning my sexuality, preferred activities, and positions to you, woman."_

She frowned slightly, but then hid her displeasure with a little bow of the head. When she didn't say anything more, Mewtwo sighed, disliking the solemn expression now plastered upon her face, and told her: _"Females, bipedal, preferably more intelligent than a simple sheep, and capable of having a larger scope of life than the banal. It scarcely matters how well endowed they might be, as long as they are honest and tolerant. As well as…emotionally warm. I would think that would most successfully complement my own nature, Anne."_

She lifted her head at the sound of his voice. "…Does it matter to you whether they are pokemon or not?"

His eyes swept over her, and for a moment grew soft before regaining their fierce hardness. "No, it does not, as surprising as that is to me."

The smile that spread across her mouth was clearly one of relief and giddiness as she raised an eyebrow at him. "I see. Well, do you have any interests right now, Mewtwo, or are you still…browsing?"

The clone abruptly decided to play a little mind game with her for her persistent prying – he was not teenage boy, after. He could see what she was doing…. _"Pamela Anderson drew my interest, however-."_

"You're can't be serious!" Anne groaned, not seeming to realize he was toying with her by saying the name of one of the most downloaded Playboy playmates on the World Wide Web.

His eyes shinned with evil amusement at her dismay, and he chuckled when he replied, _"No, I am not. To be truthful, Anne, there is only one female I can currently contemplate having such a relationship with."_

Anne's fingertips gripped the cushion of the sofa a little too hard, as light as her voice was as she said, "Oh? Anyone I know?"

"_Yes…perhaps I shall tell you just who sometime soon. For now, I will retire to meditation for tonight. Good night, Anne."_

Yet spying her contemplative expression, he forced himself not to be entirely cruel, even with his own uncertainties over the topic. On his way past her, he paused, resting his paw across the side of her face, his thumb beneath her small chin. She almost seemed to wait for something when his fingers traced down the side of her jaw, but he pulled away, walking over to the studio without a word. He did not desire to leave her without hope, for the chance was there, slim though it may be; but neither did he want to imbue her with too much hope in case nothing came to pass between them. As a result, though it was slightly monstrous of him to do, he left the woman with no answers - he simply was not ready to do anything else just yet. After all, he was far from a creature that could change as swiftly as one of her kind; and while such an unfaltering nature and constant persona had its pros as well as cons, adaptation to a new situation like this would not happen over a matter of a day. Until he had the concrete answers he sought, until he had more faith in the bond between them, he would not risk himself to a mad gamble. He was not as reckless as a man in that manner, not prepared to jump headfirst into a passionate dive with no knowledge of what lay beneath him; no, self-preservation ran him far more than emotion. It would take a lot more than Anne's loneliness to curb his stoicism. Therefore, he could not make the leap presently for her….

Not yet, he thought to himself and to her…not quite yet.

* * *


	5. The Peanut Brittle Incident

_**

* * *

**_

Monday, February 13th of 2006 / 7:34 p.m.:

The sweet aroma of melting butter and sugar wafted through the rooms of the condominium two months later, appetizing despite being entirely unhealthy for consumption. Anne Nakamura stood in her kitchen before the stove, which held a large saucepan containing a mix of white sugar, light corn syrup, salt, and water. She stirred the blend over medium heat frequently while biting her lower lip. The counter was covered in spilled ingredients and used measuring cups; after a moment she turned and groped for the device among the mess, playing its directions again and listening intently. On the other side of the stove lay a greased cookie sheet, waiting for the concoction she was making to be completed, and near it was also a couple tablespoons of soft butter, a teaspoon of baking soda, and a cup of peanuts. What would normally have taken little more than an hour had thus far taken her several in order to try to follow the recipe perfectly; more than once she had nearly chucked something at the wall in frustrated tears when the mix had started to burn. Now, slowly, she reached for the cup of peanuts, only to accidently knock them over across the counter. With a curse she stopped stirring, trying to scoop the edibles up quickly to toss them into the blend before the temperature of the sweet reached 150 degrees Celsius – Mewtwo was watched the cooking thermometer so as to alert her to when it was ready. It was about the only thing she allowed him to do for her. Previously she had shouted at him that she was going to make the candy herself, and now was almost degraded into hysterics when time and again her attempts failed. Yet she wanted what she was making to be special, a thing she had made personally without others aiding her: even when she had nearly burned herself upon spilling a previous concoction to the floor, coming within inches of being splashed by the boiling mix, she had stopped only to clean up the sticky mess before trying it again. Now the entire apartment was hot with the heat of the stove, but the woman persevered, threatening to castrate Mewtwo if he dared attempt to do more than tell her when the peanut-brittle had reached the appropriate temperature.

Yet as she quickly scooped up the peanuts in her hands and tossed them in, Mewtwo watched carefully the angle in which her elbows were falling, and darted up and jerked her back before her arm hit the handle of the saucepan, which would have caused it to splatter across her front. Her fingers however, did brush the hot metal as her pulled her back; she yowled sharply as the searing heat kissed her skin. With a sigh he turned on the cold water, dipping her burned extremities into the icy spray, and growled at her that she was being foolish. She could always simply have ordered the treat or asked someone to purchase it for her – or, if she insisted on it being homemade, she could have asked him to make it. In response Anne snarled that that wasn't the point.

"_Explain your insanity to me then. It is difficult enough for you to make tea…trying to create something more elaborate without being able to see what you are-."_

She pulled away from him forcefully, finding her way back to the saucepan with a curse, "I _will_ make this myself! Shit, Mewtwo, this has already started to burn to the bottom-!"

"_Why are you so very intent on making this particular sweet?"_ He asked her in a growl. _"You are devoted to the point where you forgo safety to-."_

"Tomorrow…it's Valentine's Day, Mewtwo. Or don't tell me you, with your attentiveness to details, didn't notice that?"

He glared at her and turned away. _"I am aware of the date, woman; I merely pay it no mind. It is nothing more than a feculent commercialization that exploits a pure emotion to maximize company wealth, using sales of sweet things that cannot purchase romance to draw in dewy-eyed consumers. Every year the infatuated fools spend their money and time over gifts that cannot ensure their continued happiness with their partners, and they never realize that every day of the year should be special in the presence of the one they care for, not simply the days allotted for the purpose. Furthermore, for every couple who shares the day in joy, ten people wander alone and must endure the realization of their solitude when seeing pink hearts and decorations surrounding them. The accursed day mocks those who keep a level head, and stabs them with reminders of past rejection. I would have thought you would understand this pain, yet this clearly displays you to be as much of a 'sap' as the common sheep who waste their money and emotions over the enterprise."_

"I see someone's a little bitter. Do you really hate it that much?"

"'_Hate' is too potent of word – it implies a level of dark passion that it does not deserve. No, like with your race, I cannot feel anything more than a strong sense of dislike towards it. In that manner, I am more indifferent to it than vengeful,"_ he explained, and for a moment watched at Anne's face fell at his words before she rearranged her expression.

"We'll see…maybe this year will be different. I, for one, am not going to curl up into a ball and curse the world to stop being giddy. I _will _make the person I like candy, as is traditional for females to do – even though it isn't chocolate, since he can't eat that without dying – and your sullen nature isn't going to stop me."

Her announcement was news to the clone. In the two months that had passed since Mewtwo allowed himself to be open to the concept of perhaps sharing something more meaningful with his companion, a minimal shift had passed between them. For one matter, the small touches the two exchanged, so few in number at first, slowly became habitual, the pressure of fingers most often to the arm or shoulder, and at rare times to the face. For another thing, their interactions had become far less formal, to the point where the two might argue over a trivial matter - quite like this - or delight in some private entertainment that those around them could scarcely understand. This had made the telepath hopeful that the concept he had been ruminating over was not as unlikely as he had at first imagined. As a result, the idea that the woman might have lost her interest in him in preference for a male he did not know wasn't entirely welcome to him. The artificial pokemon would not be crushed if this were the case: he did not trail after her like a love-stricken teenage boy, longing for a kind word or warm kiss. Still, the realization that something he had been contemplating could be over before it had even begun was displeasing. Disappointment, if he allowed himself to muse over the topic and care enough for it, might be inevitable. He crossed his arms as he watched her, his posture the picture of aggravation. Mewtwo understood his forming ire was indicative of an interest more developed than he had allowed himself to suspect, but he could not deny that anger stirring in his stomach. With a silent growl he stormed away, forgetting completely the fact that he was supposed to responsibly be watching the rising temperature gauge. It wasn't until the scent of burning sugar and Anne's wail that he dragged himself from his reverie of irritation, and returning to the kitchen he watched her plunge the sullied saucepan into the full sink in a splash of steam and chilly water. She turned and started pacing, flexing her hands into fists and shouting out in a rant:

"Damn it, why weren't you-?" She shook her head, moaning, "God, it doesn't even matter…I can't even make a simple _fucking tray of candy_ for someone by myself! I _hate_ this! I _hate_ not being able to see everything I have to do. Give me one hour of sight, only one, and I'd be able to do it, but of course that can't happen! I want to do this _one_ thing…this _one_ little thing for someone, but…but…damn it. Damn it, _damn it, DAMN IT_!"

The telepath quickly took her wrists, stopping her tirade, and peered into her face…she was on the verge of tears. His own fury began to dissipate, and he said quietly, _"Shush…it will be fine. Your pride is keeping you from completing this task, nothing more. If you accept my help you may finally obtain something concrete for all your efforts."_

With reluctance she finally gave in. The two took out a new saucepan and filled it with the ingredients necessary, and took turns stirring until the mixture had reached a boil and the temperature necessary to be fully cooked. With pot-holder adorning her hands, Anne carefully took the saucepan from the hot coils it had been sitting on and set it upon the space Mewtwo directed her too, the area having been wiped and cleared earlier. He handed her the butter and baking soda, guiding her hands so the ingredients were tipped into the center of the caramel-colored goop, and told her when the final ingredients were evenly mixed into the melt. The next part was perhaps what she needed the most aid with: she had to pour the concoction evenly into the cookie sheet, and then lift and pull the mixture to the edges, making it into a flat, even layer in the rectangular depression. He guided her motions again, and slowly she tipped the syrupy mess into the cookie sheet, almost spilling half of it onto the counter had the clone not intervened. They then each took spatulas and smoothed the topaz dessert across the tin, the edges becoming sticky with strands of peanut-brittle, and that done they set it aside to cool. It took about an hour, and in that time they cleaned the dishes they had used and attempted to scrub the burned bits off of the scorched utensils; they finally surrendered and let the hopeless tools soak, allowing the water and soap to soften the encrusted parts for later removal. Mewtwo - not allowing her to approach the still hot stovetop - refused to let her to clean the area, instead ordering her to sit down at the table.

The woman obeyed, if hesitant to let him do the work considering his sharp tone, and after a few minutes he waited with her until the peanut-brittle had fully cooled. She tested the metal with a finger, and then tapped on the hard, butterscotch-golden candy. Smiling she carefully flipped the cookie sheet over, bending it as one would a tray of ice-cubes. After a bit of manipulation and abuse, the candy crackled free of its filaments and fell across the table before them, breaking into larger chunks. At that point, Anne refused to let Mewtwo's furry paws touch the treat and defile it with his loose fur, instead going over to the cupboard and searching for the tin she had in its depths. Finding the red, empty container, she rinsed the dust from it and wiped it dry, and then searched for the pieces of candy with groping fingers. The chunks snapped into smaller pieces as she broke them into shards, and "tinked" into the tin when she placed them within it. By the time she was done the container was close to full, and Mewtwo stopped her before she could place the cover on. Though the sweet looked and smelled delicious, a taste-test was required; she would not wish to poison the one that she was giving the treat to, would she?

"Are you volunteering," she asked, "or will you force me to take the risk?"

He responded blandly, _"As you will not allow me to touch the treat, I cannot grab a piece and force it onto you. Therefore I must try the candy to see if it is edible or something not fit for vermin."_

The woman smiled for the first time in hours and grabbed a piece…but instead of finding his paw and placing the shard within its grip, her free hand lifted to find his muzzle. He stilled under the touch, and nearly ceased to breathe went she pressed the fingers of her other hand and the candy to his lips. His opened his jaw, taking the edge in his teeth gently, and forced himself not to back away when her hands lingered. His long tongue, of a sandpapery texture, darted out, drawing the peanut-brittle into his mouth. It crunched noisily even with his jaw closed as he chewed, and little pieces of the sweet-and-salty, nutty dessert caught in the indents of his grinding teeth. Yet the peanut taste was an enjoyable one, and the nuts themselves added soft bits to the hard crystals now melting in his mouth. At some point he swallowed the moist bolus down, and had to fight the animalistic urge to lick his chops to discover if any tiny fragments clung to the fur of his muzzle. The battle failed to an extent – Anne's fingers, smelling of the ingredients of the candy and apples, made the tip of his tongue dart out to test the flavor, to understand if it was food. There was a sticky residue on their tips; she laughed as she felt the sensation of his tongue across them, pulling away with a smile. "I take it you like the candy?"

"_Yes…the peanut-brittle is…acceptable to my tastes."_

Of course, that was only his opinion; the one she was giving it to might not think the same. Yet Anne beamed at his words, and a happy expression lit her face that made even her scars seem to glow with a beautiful sheen. With careful deliberation she placed the cover on the container and hugged it to her chest as one might a pillow in contentment. She murmured quietly that she was glad to hear that he'd approved of it, thanked him, and stepped down the hall in an almost bouncing walk towards her room. He heard the door slide shut after a moment, and with that his aggravation began to return to him: he could still feel the soft pressure of her fingers against his mouth, still taste the saliferousness of her hand. Even when the hours brought the cover of deep night over the home, and he could hear the wind outside battering against the crystalline paintings of frost covering the windows, the memory of it would not abandon him for merciful rest. Furthermore, what Anne had said bothered him: who was it that had captured her attention without his knowing? If she were truly attached enough to him to go to all the effort to make him such a personal gift, then why had the feline not smelled him upon her, or heard her speaking to him on the phone? Did she not want her roommate to know that she involved with someone, possibly even dating him outside of the wanderer's knowledge? Though her private business was not any of his concern, nor something he would have been concerned with even three months ago, he now found himself haunted by the possibilities.

It was, he thought, uncharacteristically selfish of him to wish upon her his same unhappiness he experienced in being a rogue entity. Yet the cliché proved true in this manner: misery did savor the company of others who were hurting. The ailing ones did not wished to be faced with the blissfully whole and healthy, nor did people in the midst of the harshest throes of emotional agony want to be faced with a group of happy, laughing beings. They wished to indulge in their pain with fellows of a similar addiction to masochism, or superimpose their incompleteness upon others in sadist ways. They oftentimes sabotaged the ones they cared for to keep them near, to cling to them and live vicariously through their existence. He had once done something similar in a borderline act of possession over his gathering of clones…yet he had made the choice to let them go. Difficult as it had been, he had given them their freedom when it had been well within his power to imprison them in the region close to him, perhaps to forever wander the halls of the island he had made his own. Yet the bond he had shared with them had been as their guardian, and it had been his task to ensure their health and happiness - to smother them would have destroyed them. Though he found himself far more involved in Anne's life than he had ever truly been in their own affairs, he knew bending her to his will would also maim her soul, as if the damage to her body had not been enough of an insult.

Still…there was a harsh desire within him to not let her go in the morning to find the man and give her gift. If the human accepted it, she would likely fall into his life and leave the clone's. Yet if he rejected her…oh, there was a lovely, cruel hope that such would be the case, even if the woman would be broken over it. His lips curled back from his teeth; was he truly such a monster as to desire her to suffer? Even now, after all this time had passed, was he no better than the creature who had watched her without caring for her well-being, but had saved her merely for the sake of his honor?

The clone slipped from the leather sofa, padding silently down the hall. He would ask her who the male with the selective appetite was before he decided upon any course of action. If the man did not meet his expectations of what he believed she deserved, he could always make the potential lover experience a lethal accident. Anne Nakamura would probably discover his part in the death and come to forsake him, but he did not wish for another to shatter the strength she had gained after so much struggle to grow as a person. In the unlikely chance her choice did seem suitable to the drifter he would depart, perhaps even without a farewell. It would be best to allow her to move on with her life without him lurking in its shadows. Either way, it would be a thorough cut, a clean severance of the last bond he had to his past. Though the concept made him grieve, he could accept it when the time came. Yet first he must discover who the mysterious fellow was who captivated her presently; one step at a time, he would move forward. Stopping at her door, he pressed a paw to it and tested it – it was unlocked – and he slid it open slowly, peering into the gloom within.

The tin of peanut-brittle rested on her table by her music, and upon hearing her door open, the not yet sleeping human sat up, asking him what he wanted as she fastened the top two buttons of her silken pajama-top. Her pants hung over the edge of her bed, only used when she was walking around the house during days off when she lounged about lazily. Though she had pulled her covers over her hips, he had glimpsed the hint of white, thin panties covering her intimate parts, and had spied the fact that she wore no undergarment beneath the shirt. The skimpy garb was not particularly wise of her, but he had come to expect such things: she had started wearing her robe rather more loosely than typical after Christmas, and so he had caught flashes of her breasts and thighs more than once. Even though he had seen her unclothed before, after he had established that she was within his tastes concerning sex, the teasing had come to affect him, making him more irritable with her behavior. Now he felt his throat go hoarse, his mouth salivate somewhat, and a faint warmth spreading just beneath the fur of his face and chest. Cursing her, he walked forward to take a seat on the edge of her bed. The only light came from the full moon outside, which erased many of the small imperfections of her features that were obvious with more light exposure. Even her scars seemed smoother, an illusion that annoyed his mind considering that he could usually see better at night than in the day. Her expression was questioning, even nervous - why was he here in her room, sitting on her bed? He could almost hear the inquiries and suspicions cascading in her mind, hitting boulders of logic and remembered incidences, and again she repeated herself, "Mewtwo? Do you want something?"

The choice of words nearly made him cackle bitterly; this evening was being very cruel in its wry humor. Keeping his voice level, he asked in a low voice, _"Whom are you giving that candy to tomorrow, Anne?"_

She leaned away at the stony crispness of his tone. "…Can't you wait until morning to find out? It's too late at night to play the interrogation game…I want to go to sleep, Mewtwo."

"_Answer my question first: a name, if you will, perhaps an address-."_

Her face contorted into a glare she directed over his shoulder. "What, are you going to hunt him down and recreate the Inquisition on him too? No, I will not tell you just because you're impatient-."

"_Impatient? Human, I have been waiting for you to make your interests clear for months, never prying an answer from you to understand if you were willing to…."_ He trailed off, stopping himself short. What could he have said to finish his retort? That he had been trying to decipher if she, a member of the human race, would accept him fully in both his body and soul, despite the sordidness of his being? That he had been waiting to see whether she could possibly be his partner, even if he had serious misgivings about his own yearning for intimate company? Why would she, someone uncontaminated by the evils of the world like he was, allow him to sully her with himself? Perhaps he was utterly mad as well as monstrous to wish to see if he could make her his, to see if she might complete the inchoate soul he possessed, divided between the pokemon nature of his physical self with the humanity of his ingrained mentality. Still, the attraction to the idea was there, having stirred to life without his knowledge over the shifting of the seasons, unnoticed until he had become attentive to the unknown, neglected aspects of his being. He leaned closer to her and growled out, _"If you could only see me now, then you would understand. You would comprehend how I have been set apart due to my godless birth, my form a hideous sight for all to witness, branding me as unnatural and unwelcome in anyone's arms. My appearance causes those whom I might desire to shun me. Only you out of your own choice have allowed me to linger here so long, but if you could see me you would have turned me away just as-."_

Suddenly Anne's hands were against his face, roaming, exploring its contours and facets, and she spoke quietly, "Then let me see you. I…I can make a picture in my mind through touch…and maybe you're right. Afterwards, I might leave you too. But I doubt it…after all, even if it was for a second, I did glimpse you once…you didn't seem so grotesque to me then, so…."

Her voice trailed off as the feline moved forward, nuzzling the soft warmth of her hands, trying to ease the wretched, horrible ache of loneliness that now threatened to overwhelm him. He realized now that it was not so much the prospect of her being with another than infuriated him as much as it saddened him to think he would have lost his only chance to be precious to someone in the uncaring world. For she was a rare creature, this Anne, for not only being a part of his past but possessing within herself a kindness that he had experienced only a twice before in his life. He went still as her fingers and palms traced his somber expression, moving up from his short muzzle across his high cheeks, his exotic eyes, over the heavy ridges of his eyebrows and up to the tips of his rigid ears. They swept downwards, beneath his chin, stroking at his neck – they both gave a soft gasp as she found his second one, her in surprise and him in response to the startling, tingling sensation that arose from touch to the sensitive mutation. Her body swayed closer as her hands slowly traveled from the bony plate across his back to the smoother, sinewy muscles beneath that led to the base of his tail. Her fingers darted forward, rising up her sides to the soft spot beneath his shoulder socket – she took her time with one arm, then the other, tracing the scarring tracks and then exploring his hands with a small smile of delight. He took the expression as an encouraging sight that perhaps she was not growing more and more disturbed. She gripped his wrist, running her thumbs along his paw, caressing his knuckles softly and her brow furrowing as she felt the rounded tips of all six of his fingers and clucked her tongue softly. At that point she paused for a moment, as if uncertain about going on, but then she moved, resting her hands on his shoulders. The flat of her palms ran across his pronounced collar and down the bony plate of chest armor – she traced the edges, tilting her head as she added the features to the image she was building in her head.

Mewtwo himself had his eyes closed at this point as he tried not to allow her to know his pleasure as her touch, and as he controlled his body from making the comfort of it evident. She gripped the lower portion of his ribs, her spread fingers running down the small muscles…she almost jerked away when she came to where his navel should have been and found only smooth skin. There was no indent where an umbilical cord would have been cut…after all, mammals of pokemon species did have live births, not eggs as children were led to believe. She slowly, pondering what it meant, she moved her hands to the outside of his hips, and backed away so she could have the room to understand the build of one of his legs. It was a heavy, flattened oval, hiding his knee hinge, until it crooked at the ankle joint, which curved into a long foot. The false toe near to where the inner fibula jutted from the skin was spherical in shape like his fingertips, while his feet themselves arched and placed the balance of the body on twin, flat toes. He twitched as she teasingly tickled him, and then her motions became slower, more timid with nervousness. It was not until she placed her palms at his midriff that he understood why. When she had said she needed to touch him to build a _complete_ picture, she had meant all of him…and she wasn't certain what she would find when she reached between his thick legs. Mewtwo paws gripped the sheets hard as her palms passed over his violet fur, and he saw her eyes widen minimally at the involuntary reaction her explorations resulted in: the hot bump forming beneath her hand pulsed, and he began to tear away from her in a mixture of shame and mortification. She stopped him with a whisper, "It's fine…it's not like you're an 'it,' so I doubt you can help it." And so the next minute passed quickly as Mewtwo regain control and Anne memorized the shape of his long, sinewy tail in her grip, her explorations coming to a finish when she took her hands for the heavier, club-like tip of his tail. Moving back into her pillows, she said, "You have very thin fur: I can feel the skin underneath it. Your pelt is what, a snowy lilac tone, if I remember correctly?"

"_Yes, with the exception of my midriff and tail, which are of a dusty purple color…as for my skin, beneath my fur it is mostly off-white, though in parts there are greater melatonin concentrations with shade it into a light crème,"_ he informed her. _"My eyes, on the other hand-."_

She smiled. "I remember; they're a deep violet color, like a gemstone…maybe apatite, though amethyst seems more appropriate."

He gazed upon her mellow expression, searching for signs that she was ill at ease and wanted him gone. Finally, unable to form any conclusions from the available evidence, he asked, _"Shall I be departing before the dawn breaks, or-?"_

"No," she said firmly, shaking her head. "No, I don't want you to leave."

The statement was, without any room for doubt, the most touching thing anyone had ever uttered to him. He sighed, warmed from it without personal consent, and he reached out to her, strands of her light brown hair running over his paw in the sensation of down woven into silken filaments. _"…That is kind of you to say…but if you are pursuing an unnamed male at the moment, it is probably best if you do not-."_

She lifted an eyebrow at his words. "I'm surprised…I thought you were more intelligent than to make assumptions."

His brow furrowed. _"The peanut-brittle-."_

She smirked at him. "Well, I rather didn't want to end up killing you with chocolate, and since pokemon are supposed to enjoy peanut-butter, I thought that maybe…well, that you'd like it. At least that's what I was hoping."

Shock was rarely something that assaulted Mewtwo: either his six senses alerted him to what was coming, or his brain deciphered the available information to form a conclusion beforehand. Yet now he stared openly at the woman before him, his mind stumbling to understand what she meant. The peanut-brittle she had spent most of the day trying to make, risking serious burns to either her skin or her kitchen ceiling was for his sake? She cared for him enough, in manner that wasn't platonic, to want to give him a gift on what was construed to be the most romantic day in the human's calendar? Remembering her seething comments to her brother, her personal questions, her gentle touches, and the way she would blush if it seemed he were mocking her or complimenting her…it was truly he, the wanderer, the monster, she was interested in?

The first word that sprang above his turbulent thoughts was "why?" He was not one of her kind; he bore the violent tendencies of a predator who could barely curb his temper; he was not comical or upbeat as many, more desirable males were said to be; nor could he give her in certainty all the affection and warmth that would make her feel adored by her lover. Sometimes he would even fall into near obsessive devotion when it came to matters of his interest, and Anne had experienced his complete obliviousness to her presence when in the throes of this near depravity – and if she tried to pry him away, he had more than once cursed her and lashed out, not wishing to be interrupted in his contemplations. Yet he reminded himself that those times had been so rare…for the most part they had discussed their concerns, their hours apart, and their plans for the next day. More than once he had carried her to her bed went she had drifted off next to him as they'd listened to instrumental masterpieces he had downloaded for their mutual enjoyment off the internet. And always, when he had spoken of deeper thoughts that had no true bearing on the workings of life except to offer some spiritual clarity, she had listened to his poetic soliloquies in appreciation, not in contempt. His taciturn nature did not turn her aside: she saw that there was light in him, not simply darkness. Had anyone else in his adult life done that before, or did their _vision_ of him blindfold them to the being he might be…?

The need to convey gratitude arose from deep in his chest, and he leaned over her slightly, his breath mingling with hers. She could feel his nearness in the warmth rolling from his form, and he heard her breath catch slightly at his proximity to her. He murmured out, _"So you care for me very much, Anne?"_

She gulped soundlessly and nodded. "Yes…yes, I do."

He wished she could see his smile – he so wanted her to be able to. Yet he supposed then that there was one way he could let her know: _"I would like to try something now, if you do not mind."_

It spoke highly of how much she trusted him, of all creatures, when she said that would be fine. He stayed still for a moment, memorizing the features of her face: the pearly glow of her skin in the ghostly light filtering in through the window; the pale pinkness of her mouth, her lips slightly parted; the way the locks of her hair curled about and framed her face; the silver sheen of her white scars, and the way her unseeing eyes seemed to focus on his soul, not his face. He would keep that picture in his mind in the years to come until his eventual death, and would come to recall in perfect clarity the way her mouth tasted and felt as he leaned forward and pressed his own to hers. The mimic of the human kiss was something very few other species could do, and if it wasn't for the fact that his mouth was to the front of his muzzle instead of beneath it, he would not have managed to cradle her mouth with his. Rather, he was the one with thin lips, so it was Anne's who caressed his quietly; for a moment, the little sounds of pleasure she made he thought were protests. Yet the slender hands which gripped his shoulders did not attempt to push him away – they drew him closer, until his body rested against hers, pressing them down into the pillows behind her. One of his arms slid around her, holding her close, not wishing to let go of the utter bliss the act provided. His other paw reached out to lay against her face, his thumb stroking her scars, and he sighed into her at the flavor of her mouth. She didn't only smell like apples: she tasted like them too, a mixture of the fruit's sweet and tangy flavor. He found himself suddenly amused: was this not a parallel to Eve and Adam's choice to bite into the Fruit of Knowledge, to learn what God had forbidden them to know? For the pair currently, the realization of what was good and what was evil indicated that their decision to do this was not wrong. They pressed themselves closer together then, a desperate need to share one another forming in their cores, banishing past disappointments in the lingering gesture. Though they parted several times for oxygen they did not cease…they let their kiss consume them, let it delight them, let it feed their solace. Eventually they ceased their movements together reluctantly, pulling apart minimally to catch their now ragged breaths. The experimentation that should have lasted but a fraction of a second, to test their limitations, made the truth abundantly clear: they wanted more of one another. Sighing, the wanderer embraced the woman again, pressing the side of his face to her chest…her heart-rate reflected his own, beating rapidly within her ribs. His paws gripped the adjacent sides of her shirt, tugging slightly as he whispered hoarsely, "_May I_?"

Knowing where this would inevitably lead them, Anne gasped out a "yes" quickly and shivered as the cool air hit her heated flesh when his telekinesis and tugging undid her top, exposing the bare skin beneath. His arms slid about her ribs, his fingers tracing patterns into the small of her back as he leaned his forehead to hers and breathed her in: she smelled of feminine things, of body wash, floral shampoo, and the natural alluring odors of female pheromones. He dipped his head, brushing his mouth against her jaw, before nuzzling her neck with a soft purr. The rumbling of pleasure grew louder as her hands against slid over his taunt muscles and face. He curled his spine, pressing his muzzle to her chest, just above her breasts, and asked in a hushed voice, _"Have you done this before, Anne?"_

A faint blush, noticeable in the dim, spread across her cheeks as she murmured, "…No."

He did not question her at the time; he would later, but not right then. _"…So if we are successful, this will hurt you?"_

"Yeah…a little…," she replied, her voice slightly strained.

"…_I suppose that cannot be avoided…I wish that were otherwise,"_ he whispered back to her, his fingers roaming her in memory of things he had seen and read about the experience they were evidently choosing to undertake. Not that he was following any sort of guide as he explored her; he wanted to touch her, to hold her, to feel her…the yearning was stronger than he had imagined it could be, and having repressed it as adamantly as he had now made the longing for affection that much harder to control. After years of self-inflicted abstinence, and it was only from what remained of his working mind that gave him the restraint to resist hurrying. He would not rush this…he refused to…!

She pressed her mouth against one of his ears, asking him in a slightly husky voice, "What about you? Have you…?"

He answered her truthfully: _"No."_

Their conversation trailed off with that reply, and in the following minutes the two swiftly became utterly enraptured in one another. The wanderer fleetly lost himself in the delights of exploring the soft female, in listening to her hitched breaths and her little cries of pleasure that escaped her throat. He felt the lingering bliss of her fingers stroking down his pelt, of her nails digging little rivets into his back as she drew him closer. His paws moved beneath her shoulder blades, pressing upwards to arc her spine as he pressed his muzzle against her breastbone. Several displays of more primal instincts when preparing himself and his potential mate for consummation rose in his actions. His sandpapery tongue snaked out, licking against her skin, grooming her of tiny impurities and the perspiration forming in a thin sheen upon her. His fingers flexed as they ran along her, reminiscent of the involuntary extending and retracting of his nonexistence claws, a reflex of enjoyment. His pupils dilated into slits, the purr in his chest quickly deepened into a growl of pleasure as her mouth found his neck and chest, and her limbs rubbed his form in heavenly caresses. He slid her top down from her shoulders, letting it fall from the edge of the bed, and pressed her beneath him wordlessly, kissing then nursing at the pink nubs of her harden nipples, her firm breasts fitting nicely in his paws. Yes, she might not be the most voluptuous of creatures, but he liked her as she was…she was more than pleasing enough. Her body writhed with his, his damp fur velvet-soft against her hot, naked skin…she wasn't disturbed by the alien sensation. She had been hoping for this for some time, as he had, and she wished to enjoy it thoroughly.

The male passed his gripping fingers down her ribs, across her flat stomach, hooking his fingers beneath the delicate straps of her panties…she slid from them as he pulled them away. As he explored her with a paw, his mouth caressing hers, she jerked against his probing fingers, buttery, wet, panting as he dug through her small curls of hair and between the tender, searing folds of flesh. Eventually her little pleads and whimpers for him to cease for the moment made him pull his hand away, the treatment reversed so he became the subject of similar pleasuring. Her palms stroked down his chest, his abdomen, eventually rubbing between his legs in a manner which made Mewtwo's mind reel at the waves of pleasure rolling up into the pit of his stomach at her caresses. His body, eager for gratification, responded quickly, forming an erection which slid into her grasping, stroking hands. She smirked at him, kissing his face as he groaned at her ministrations, and laughed, "Well this is a relief: I'm not going to be speared. Not that _this_ isn't impressive, but…." She chuckled lowly against his muzzle.

His mouth found hers again in a passionate kiss that nearly asphyxiated them both as he moved restlessly against her. _"Anne…please…."_

Thrilled by the rough sound of his voice in his plea, Anne grinned and wrapped her arms around him, cradling him as she rubbed her cheek to his. "Since you asked nicely," she murmured, though her shaking betrayed the fear underlying her own want as she encircled his hips with her legs. He hesitated even as her sex brushed his, feeling her quiver like that, and lifted his muzzle to breathe in the air above them that wasn't as saturated with her heady scent. He could not avoid the intoxication of lust, but he could try to curb it for a few moments…. As he leaned back against her with a clearer head, he nipped her shoulder gently, the fingers of one of his paws intertwining with those of her right hand, which rested above their heads. His other arm supported her from behind as he moved forward, the tip of him sliding easily into her…the sudden warmth of her made him desire to rush madly forward, but he curbed the urge…. Yes, libido hung heavily over both of them now, but that was not the only reason why they did this. They wanted to be sensually close to each other, and reminding himself that she could see nothing in these activities he closed his eyes, aching to know her experience. It was scarcely arduous to focus his other senses instead - they grew evermore acute, until he could burn the feelings, the tastes, the sounds and smells into his memory as he penetrated her slowly. Though difficult, he wanted to at least try to acclimate his dear one to the sensation, rather than shocking her with a sudden, unforgiving thrust of his hips into her. Thus far, resistance from either body was minimal…yet soon enough he had felt the virginal wall inside her. Anne seized in sudden discomfort, restless for him to move forward but also tensing for unavoidable pain – he licked her shoulder shortly in the pokemon's kiss, and drew back, feeling her relax slightly. He brought himself forward before she could tense again and make the sensation crueler, piercing her until he'd buried himself fully within her.

He felt as much as heard her cry out, felt her thrash against him as if to try to push him away, and for an agonizing moment he stayed still until she regained control of herself to stop her struggles. When she did he could feel tears dripping onto his face, hear her whimpering in pain…he breathed an apology against her skin and slowly let instinct take over again – the blood he could smell only increased his need. The wanderer, bound now, moved himself in a quickening rhythm within her, nearly driven into a mad frenzy by the sheer ecstasy of the repetitious sensation…but he kept the pace slow initially, not wishing to lose control and possibly harm her, or reach the heights of the act before she did. Perhaps it was sentimental of him, but he yearned to share this with her, not simply take her for his enjoyment like an object of sexual pleasure…this was his Anne, not a nameless doll. He held her harder as their movements sped, murmuring her name in a soft, intermitted chant, kissed at her when his lungs allowed him to. His tail surrounded her, stroked her, felt her body quiver with waves of pleasure that overshadowed pain. Her heart fluttered in her chest wildly, her breath coming in gasps and sometimes formed into the shape of his name. His racing heart swelled at the sound of it…she was exhilarated as he was now, crying out in a mixture of joy and ardor. Her limbs constricted around him fiercely, pressing him ever closer, and at one point he felt her nip at his neck between her kisses....

Mewtwo could feel the rapture building within each of them, could feel how her aura mimicked her body, encompassing him in deep warmth. As he had fiercely hoped would be the case, she reached her peak before he lost complete control of his actions, her body arcing up into his as she threw her head back into the pillows beneath them, a sharp cry of utter ecstasy escaping her throat. She murmured his name once, and after she had stopped twitching in his hold embraced him firmly, as if to keep him from flying to pieces within her grasp. His fingertips dug into her hips as his motions became erratic, and when he was incapable of holding back any longer, he yowled lowly as he thrust himself into her with far more force than before. Anne, his dear one, whimpered at the sudden phantom sensation of the heat within him rushing into her. Finally they sank into the covers, their movements slowing…the male remained within her for a few moments longer, savoring the feel of her. Then, with a heavy sigh, Mewtwo slid away from her and opened his eyes, coming to crouch on all fours above her, his face pressed to hers. The skin of her cheeks and chest burned most notably of all, leaving her flushed and appearing thoroughly worn. He wiped the damp strands of her hair from her face, kissing her softly, before rolling to his side and removing his weight from over her. She followed the motion, curling her body against his front and burying her face into his shoulder. The ease of her body and the tender expression on her face displayed her contentment clearly…his own face, though not as smooth, was pervaded with a similar expression of gentleness as he wrapped his arms and tail about her, cradling her close.

As he licked her cheek softly, she suddenly began to laugh. The gesture of glee was infectious, making a mellow smile spread across the clone's muzzle. _"What? Anne, why do you-?"_

"Joseph's -," she managed to gasp out, "Joseph's argument – it's all shot to hell! We did _NOT_ get struck down by lightning!"

Amusement colored his voice as he inquired: _"Were you expecting us to be?"_

She shrugged, tilting her head back as she chuckled, "No. Well, I wasn't certain was I was expecting, Mewtwo…."

She spoke his name warmly as if it were synonymous for love, and as if the connection he felt for her could not strengthen anymore, he found himself cherishing her with deeper adoration. The pokemon purred, nuzzled her, kissed her, too weary to immediately attempt to join with her again but wishing to melt with her being anyhow. So _this_ was what happiness was, he thought: not so much the physical bliss of mating, which had been perfect in itself, but the cataclysm of emotions that accompanied it when shared between two beings who held one another as precious. Distantly, he understood from an intellectual standpoint that part of what he was feeling was the residual hormones running rampant throughout his body from the carnal release. The biological chemicals caused him to feel fiercely bonded to her, to wish to guard over her and the potential offspring she might bear him to further his own bloodline. For ever though he was aware of the reality of the matter, that he could not actually sire anything within her womb, the sensation of devotion was still present, unable to be dissuaded by the cool thoughts that usually ran his doings. Anne, he knew, was experiencing the same form of rush; it would fade in a matter of hours naturally, but for now it kept them astonishingly close and intertwined. And simply because the sensation could be physically explained did not make it any less romantic to either of them. Besides, there was something else to the delight that transcended bodily rapture: their souls, in short, were thrilled to have found a life's companion at last. So when he laughed as she did, it was not from ill humor or cynically wry, and listening to the low, rich sound his partner placed her hands upon his face and murmured, "Hey…you're laughing. I've never really heard you laugh like this before. You should do it more often…it's nice."

He gathered her to him, burying his muzzle into her soft locks of light brown hair. He did not respond to her comment, but privately suspected he would indeed be doing so by far more in the future. It felt good, he mused, to feel like this, to smile like this, to laugh with someone else like this. He could comprehend now why humans and pokemon alike worshipped the ambrosial force of it, none being immune to its sweet seduction. It was…he stopped, pulling away slightly, feeling and peering at the wetness beneath them, his eyes narrowing. The clone leaned down to the covers, smelling the stained patch of fabric, the acrid odors of semen, sexual lubricant, sweat – and most notable of all, blood – assaulting his nostrils. With a soft snarl he reared back, and his lover's expression contorted to distress at the capricious shift. As she asked him what was wrong, he responded with his own question, _"Are you in pain, Anne?"_

She moved her legs slowly and winced minutely. "Um…a little…but we established the fact that it was going to hurt-."

"_Come here…I would like to see if I can try to sooth that."_

Curious as to what he meant, she huddled into his hold, going limp as he wrapped one of her legs over his hips. She shivered when she felt a sudden cool wash over his form as he charged one of the abilities he rarely ever used. Concentrating the energy to one hand, he softly pressed a paw against her sex, slowly easing one glowing finger deep into her vaginal tunnel. The woman jerked in his hold, gasping quietly as he felt for where he'd punctured her. Finding the tear, he eased the silvery energy outwards from his touch, spreading it into her slick inner flesh. Her grip upon his shoulders tightened as the pain began to disappear while he healed her wordlessly. After he was certain the task was complete, he took his paw from her, letting the air around them dry his fur without a care. After she'd asked what he'd done, he said, _"I know very few abilities that can heal, Anne…most of my attacks are destructive in nature, but I viewed this specific one to be useful, even if its effectiveness is largely dependent on the time of day and the lunar phases."_

Spying her confusion, he explained, _"It is called 'Moonlight'…it can heal status changes experienced in battle and restore health. It is one of the rare skills that can be transferred to a partner, as the healing properties are carried in its light. It is outside of my natural range of learned skills; however, like my predecessors I am capable of acquiring far more skills if I wish to."_

She leaned her head against his shoulder. "Oh…though that does bring up a valid point," she murmured.

"_And what might that be?"_ He asked, though not unkindly.

Anne traced random patterns into the fur of his chest. "I just slept with someone I know just about nothing about. I know you're a pokemon with humanlike qualities, but beyond that I don't know what you are or anything about your past. I'm assuming you're some kind of feline, but I've never heard of one who could use telepathy or…um…_do the things you do_."

She blushed faintly, and Mewtwo pressed his muzzle to her nose, smirking. _"…You are blushing, Anne."_

She grimaced. "I am not – I just had very hot sex, so I'm going to look as red as a-."

He cut her off with a kiss. _"No, you are blushing. The more I say it the redder you get…it has spread all the way up to your ears now-."_

"Shut up, Mewtwo. Just shut up already, mystery kitty," she ranted, burying her face into his chest. He smelled like cinnamon…she liked that, just as she liked the fact that now she smelled like him too….

He sighed into her hair. _"Do you wish to know more about me? I am inclined to tell you now."_

"Seriously? My, my, if all people have to do is give you a good lay to pry out your secrets, you're screw-."

He placed an arm over her side and rolled, pinned her beneath him. _"Will you allow me to disclose this information to you, or will continue to interrupt me?"_

His mate grinned sheepishly. "Okay, I'll be quiet now. I really do what to know."

"_Where would you like me to start?"_

She tucked an arm beneath her head and said, "You have to have a history - tell me that first."

So for once Mewtwo willingly obeyed a human, and it was strangely easy for him to tell her the story he had kept mostly concealed for the years of his wandering life. Perhaps he simply trusted her to respect his privacy and not disclose it to others; perhaps it was to repay Anne for telling him her own story, as hard as it had been for her; or perhaps he simply wanted someone, namely her, to know it. If she could endure not only taking his body into her, but also accept his past as well, then he knew this new relationship between them was true, and not a fleeting dream to disappear as soon as dawn broke in the east. So he told her all he could, leaving only the most insignificant details out, and felt a great sense of relief and weightlessness as he did so. He told her about how, in seeking to wield the most powerful pokemon in existence, the leaders of Kanto's largest gang had hired a team of geneticists, pioneers in the field of cloning, to scour South America in hopes of finding fossilized remnants of the supposedly extinct pokemon known as Mew. Upon finding a petrified hair filament with skin cells in one of the temple ruins of an ancient civilization in Peru, whose people had been dedicated in worshiping the phantom entity, the fossil had been sent to an island off the coast of Kanto. Generically named New Island, a laboratory had been built there dedicated to replicating life from DNA information instead of reanimating carbon into flesh as in Cinnabar.

Dr. Fuji, leading the research team, had tried for years to create successful clones of starter pokemon, as well as resurrect his seven-year-old daughter, who had died in a car crash. This obsession with restoring Ai's life had forced his wife to break their marriage when he refused to respect the finality of death. Now, with funding from Team Rocket and advanced equipment, the group made its first true strides to victory over the inevitable demise of life. Within a month another batch of clone fetuses had been grown and were introduced to their cultivation tanks, Mewtwo among them. From there, events took on an unexpected twist: whether it was an effect of similar physiology or inherit psychic traits, the clones began to reach out to each other telepathically, until they shared a dreamscape based upon the original Ai's memories. However, the forming friendships ended tragically as the clones, with the exception of the young Mewtwo, perished. Traumatized, the feline began to lose control of his powers until he had been forced to forget his companions. A year after his conception, having nothing but a haunting phrase as a memory of his destroyed childhood, Mewtwo awoke in his cultivation tank to find his life had no more purpose than to be a lab rat for the people, not God, who had summoned him into existence. He murdered the group as he brought the laboratory to ruin, and soon after met the one who had financed the cloning experiment: Giovanni Rocketto, who sought to teach Mewtwo how to control his psychic abilities and be a partner in the business of world domination.

As young as Mewtwo was, and without the true skills of empathy, the clone agreed to the bargain, unwittingly becoming the man's tool in battle and a toy to manipulate. For a year the questioning clone, eager to find his purpose in life, served Giovanni's agenda and allowed the physicians of the organization to study him in order to "help" him in his progress. Yet after a fateful argument with his "master," Mewtwo had discovered the slavery he was living in and promptly rebelled against it. He escaped from the grasp of the gang with a deeply rooted hatred for the whole of humanity, having never in his waking experiences found an example of goodness among the species. He had even despised his fellow pokemon for being nothing more that servants to the cruel race; and so came to the conclusion that only clones were worthy of existence, and so enraged formed a plan to rid the world of those he thought of as dangerous and inferior. The artificial being sought to play God, to be judge and executioner, and made the first steps towards a new world in a matter of a few months.

He created a fortress on New Island, abducted one of the Joy family nurses to gain further knowledge of pokemon physiology and as a caretaker, and then invited trainers into his palace for a competition which would, he believed, end in their failure and his acquiring the genetic samples he needed to form the first generation of a clone race. Yet when a Mew had appeared and defied him with the humans, the battle had spun out of control – it was only when a boy made the ultimate sacrifice to halt the fighting, and was subsequently resurrected with the tears of both the original and the replica pokemon, that Mewtwo realized he had been mistaken in his views on life. He had been blinded by hatred to see the positive side of the child's kind, as well as to understand that humans and pokemon could share a bond of friendship he had never witnessed as a member of a cruel gang. Furthermore, he comprehended that the matter of birth was irrelevant: it did not define a living being as actions did. So with fading ire the group of copies had left the island in search of a new, untainted home. All the others, excluding Mew, forgot about the clone leader; with the exception of Giovanni and his followers who, after a year of searching for their escaped creation, found him and the other clones' residence within Purity Canyon of Jhoto. Again the boy child and his friends appeared and aided Mewtwo and the others in warding away the advance of the gang, foiling the heinous plans to destroy the holy spring of Mt. Quena, which could restore the nearly dead back to life. At the time, Mewtwo had close to martyred himself for his "family," and had almost succumbed to the desires Giovanni wished him to bow to. Had he not been helped by the boy and healed by the mineral waters of the spring, whose composition restored his mind, body, and psychical energies, he would have perished from the abuse he'd been afflicted to. In the end, Giovanni, his right hand "Domino 009," and the special operations teams had been forced into amnesia concerning the clones' existence, and the spring had been moved safety into the underground caverns of Purity Canyon for its protection. The children, the clone race, and Mewtwo himself had gone their separate ways after that. The replicas had begun earlier to rebel for their freedom to explore the world, and now that they were safe their leader had allowed their departure. Who was he to stand in their way when they sought to make their own lives, to find their new homes and mates and have their own offspring? He refused to bind them or himself any longer with the notion that they did not belong upon Earth, and so had to hide themselves away….

As for himself, he was like other pokemon enough to enjoy his life, despite how unnatural it was, and in honor of the latter notion he vowed to himself to wander throughout the lands only in the light of the moon – for he, like the moonlight, was a reflection of something truer. Years passed in which he roamed the planet alone, sometimes taking temporary lairs and interacting with other beings from afar. He made it his quest to discover the facets of existence that he had missed previously, to learn abilities that captured his interest, and to analyze his past to see if he could form a future from the remnants of it. In the end, his journey had brought him back to the beginning and back to her….

Anne, he found as he concluded, was a very apt listener. She knew when to ask questions and how to phrase them politely; knew when she could react to some delight or atrocity or to hold her emotions as bay; and knew better than to interrupt him as he spoke to her in those hours before they found sleep. After he had finished, he gazed at her silently, spying how the glow of the full moon outside illuminated the curves of her form, adding pale traces of light along her skin and in her hair. She did not seem overtly disturbed by the facts that he had murdered, abducted, and manipulated the minds and recollections of certain individuals in the past, or had maimed those he'd battled from a predatory desire to be the superior fighter. Perhaps it made her uncomfortable, but she did not shun him now as she pondered over all he had told her. As she felt his fingertips running down her exposed side, she sighed and murmured, "You've been through quite a bit. I thought that might be the case, considering some of the things you've said…."

"…_It does not unsettle you, my past and the sins within it?"_

She shrugged. "We all have our baggage…yours simply is darker and more fascinating than normal. If I'd gone through what you've had to endure, I would probably have reacted in the same way. True, it makes me somewhat wary, but I've known your nature was somewhat vicious for a long time…and it's not like you've ever threatened me, so I'm not going to kick you out because you've done some naughty things in the past. Some acts are unforgivable, but I can understand where you're coming from. So I honestly can't think of you as a horrible person for what you've done."

The back of his fingers brushed down her hair. _"I see…."_

After a smile and a few moments more, she asked, "Can you explain some of your…'design' to me? Some of your physical features are a little puzzling."

"_Such as?"_ He said, somewhat amused at how forward she was being. There were no taboo subjects for her, evidently.

She reached up, touching the rigid appendages upon his head, "These, for one thing."

He wanted to chuckle at her confusion. _"Consider their placement, Anne…they are my ears, not horns. Unlike with other felines, they are immovable because my bones and cartilage are far denser than typical. As well, several parts of my skeleton are fused and with added layers of osteons – which is why I have a thick plate of bone over my upper ribcage, to protect my oversized heart and lungs, and hence why I need extra calcium supplements in my diet. The additions were, in short, an attempt to insure that I would not become too battered if my psychical shields ever failed and I had to resort to physical defense. Incidentally the variation makes my frame, lithe as if may be, a good thirty pounds heavier than a man of my height. After all, since my abilities are psychic in nature, there was no reason for the geneticists to provide me with additional muscle to fight using my person. As of such, with the exception of the girth of my legs and tail, which help in balanced my posture, my padding of muscles is rather thin."_

"Okay, I suppose that makes sense. What about your stance though? From what I know about cats, they're usually quadrupeds," she stated.

He smiled, finding her inquiries amusing. _"I am bipedal for a few reasons. For one thing, Mew, if not levitating, will most often walk upon its two lower legs since its arms are so tiny; therefore, this is a fairly natural pose. However, my design was manipulated in this matter. For one thing, a more sizable appearance would be more intimidating than a small, pink kitten – which is also why my coloring is different as well - and for another matter it would give me an advantage over visual perception. Had I moved on all fours, my field of sight would have been limited, having more blind spots than not. Standing erect, that weakness was eliminated, allowing me to take in my surroundings more completely. Also, having two strong legs beneath me provides a short-term ability to dodge and sprint out of harm's way provided, again, that my shields failed. Considering that new species of pokemon are discovered each year, the geneticists wanted to ensure that I could handle - or at the very least escape alive - from those who might not be affected by my elemental type. Considering the dark breed, this was a wise move on their parts."_

Anne nodded and reached behind him, stroking his second neck, asking him: "And what about this? I'm certain that isn't a natural mutation."

"…_My psychical energies, as you know, are conducted in my enlarged brain. Since the organ has more mass, it needs a greater amount of oxygenated blood than my single, thin neck can provide. Originally, what you're touching now was the scruff of my neck, natural to most felines and canines so they can be picked up by their parents as kits. To my creators, it seemed a waste not to use the excess tissue. Unlike your neck, Anne, the blood-flow of mine only goes one way: up from my heart into my brain tissues. This provides a surplus of nutrients and resources I need to conduct an excess of neuroelectrical energies which are the source of my special abilities. The second neck, as a result, is where the deoxygenated blood flows down back to my heart, as well as provides support for my heavy skull."_

She frowned as she stroked the curved length, sending tingling pleasure along the flesh. "That seems an awfully big weakness, Mewtwo."

He tone became wry, even grim. _"It is – that was part of its ulterior purpose: it was used as a control measure for my handlers. If the flow were choked, cranial pressure would build up until I was knocked into unconsciousness. If that were not enough, given a minute of restraint, the second neck could be severed with a quick tugging of a blade through the cord. I would be unable to heal myself in time to stem the flow of blood…I would bleed out in moments. Every weapon, after all, must have its fatal weakness...it is not even the only alteration that was made to my person in the hopes that I would be able to be kept in check."_

"Oh? What else was there?"

His amethyst eyes glimmered in the dark. _"As you may have noticed, I do not possess claws or fangs. Those were removed from my structure during the manipulations of my body. It was believed that if I possessed them, it would not matter if my psychic abilities were repressed: I could still dispatch whomever I wished if I had them at my disposal. However, my paws obviously still have the rounded sheathes for them, though they are empty. As well, this was done with changes to make my diet omnivorous in nature, instead of strictly pertaining to meat. With a variation in my diet my brain, like a human's, would be better sustained…also, it would be far easier to keep me fed than providing me several pounds of meat three meals a day, 365 days a year, and avoid unfortunate accidents if I felt the urge to hunt. Understand that other pokemon, unlike me, can handle kibble - I cannot tolerate it due to some of its ingredients, nor a few other substances in prepared foods, though my diet is wider than most felines,"_ he stated…and then grinned, commenting, _"On a related note, its seems we now have learned that I am not…'barbed.' I suspect that someday they might have thought it advantageous to use me as breeding material when I could no longer battle. For those reasons I am also not a very powerful creature physically – I may have my weight on my side, and can use my body in a fight if need be, but I am about as strong as a normal human male, no more."_

Anne nodded, and then asked softly after a pause, "…Do you wish they hadn't…?"

"_Tweaked my form in such ways? I rather find my frailties alleviating, as they prove I am not a monopoly of strengths. Like other beings in existence I am not immune to disease or fatal injury…my life expectancy is set at eighty years of age and no longer. If there are outside interventions or a genetic defects laying in wait for a moment of weakness on my part, that time may be even shorter. Yet I find the notion of my imperfections to be a comfort, Anne. Infallibility is too foreign a notion for others to accept…as well, I take solace from the idea that I cannot harm those I physically touch. If I possessed the traits denied to me, Anne, you would not have been able to mate with me unscathed: I would have undoubtedly torn into you and perhaps even killed you in my need. So how can I mourn the absence of anatomical details which could harm someone I care for? Even if the alterations were intended as control measure, I am grateful they were implicated: it makes me safely capable of being close to another."_

Anne contemplated that, and then rose to her hands and knees, placing an arm over him so she held herself above him. Pressing her forehead to his, she whispered, "Then I'm glad too..._especially_ about you being willing to be like this with me." Her lover, amused, leaned upwards and licked her cheek softly. With a laugh Anne pulled away, concluding her thoughts, "You are _so different_ from anyone else I've know, but I don't think that's a bad thing, my Mewtwo." Feeling him go still, the woman realized what she'd said and went on quickly, "Can I call you mine without you being offended?"

The clone reached up and caressed her cheek with a paw. _"So long as it is a mutual possession, I have no issues with it. I understand the difference between ownership and partnership…so no, being called yours will not offend me."_

She smiled. "Okay…good," she said, rubbing her nose to his muzzle in an "Eskimo kiss."

Slowly, he asked her then. _"…Have you never belonged to anyone else? I find it strange that you have never been with a male before this night._"

Her grin faded as she slowly drew back, wrapping her arms about herself and shivering from more than the chill of the open air. Mewtwo rose to sitting position, watching her shift uncertainly, and waited for her to speak if she confided in him the reason for her previously maintained virginity. Once she'd mulled the topic over and formed the words, she explained quietly, "I…I _have_ had romantic relationships before, Mewtwo. I've just never felt comfortable with the idea of giving someone all of myself until I knew things were serious. And as those relationships _were_ casual, I didn't allow more than a few shared kisses when I was younger. Then after I was blinded, even as the males around me matured, I was never able to find someone I liked, and who wouldn't judge me as a person they absolutely _had_ to take care of, providing me every need…I just can't _stand_ being dependant on people. I wanted to be an equal with the person I wanted to date, to marry, and maybe even have children with. I didn't want to be a pity case…and that's how I was treated, you know: with pity, if the guy didn't view the caretaking as too much of a responsibility…."

She trembled faintly, and with a frown the clone drew her back into his arms, laying her down with him and hugging her close. He wrapped his tail about her hips, pulling the covers over them for warmth, and pressed his muzzle into her hair, the strands tickling his nostrils. His voice was soft as he asked, _"Did you love any of them?"_

Her fingers combed through a patch of his fur. "…At the time, I thought I did…but in retrospect, I think I was more in love with the idea than the actual person. So no, I guess I've never loved anyone besides my family and friends until now."

He blinked at her, startled by what she had said so casually._ "…Would you care to repeat that?"_

Realizing the slip of her tongue, Anne flushed as she lifted her face, brushing his mouth with hers. "That's right…I haven't said it yet, have I…?"

Taking the opportunity present in his sudden silence, she murmured, "I love you…and I mean that, now and always."

The exquisite words went far beyond the captivating power of her desire for him to stay with her; they touched his core, rushed through his veins and warmed him with a heat far cozier than libido. It was a gorgeous phrase, he thought, uttered too often between those who did not understand how precious it was and so abused it with repetitiveness. Yet Anne Nakamura meant what she said; the very concept went too far against nature's law to allow her confession to be a lie. A potent, humbling happiness flooded him, and slowly he kissed both her eyelids and her mouth, and told her, _"No one has ever said such a thing to me before, Anne. Thank you."_

She curled closer to him yawned out, "I look forward to the day you say it back to me."

Outside the bedroom, the grandfather clock tolled out the hour…it was, though they hadn't noticed it during their lovemaking, one in the morning. It was the fourteenth of February, Valentine's Day, and as Anne realized the date she asked in a murmur: "Well…what are we going to do tomorrow; rather, later today? We already did what I was hoping for…."

He nuzzled her face gently. _"We could eat the peanut-brittle in the morning, and then perhaps pretend that tonight did not occur and repeat the performance."_

She chuckled into his fur. "Okay…that sounds like a nice plan…."

With that she closed her eyes and drifted off in her lover's arms; Mewtwo, nuzzling her face one last time, swiftly succumbed to slumber as well….

The next morning he awoke alone in Anne's bed to the sound of the chiming grandfather clock, his body weary to the bone and covered in blankets. He lifted his head, peering about with foggy eyes to find the female he had embraced throughout the dark hours of the twilight. Hearing shuffling noises from the kitchen, he disentangled himself from the coils of the fabric python around him and stepped from the bed, walking down the hall more heavily than normal. His stomach growled loudly within him for food, his body seeking a source of energy in light of its exertions during the night, and entering the kitchen he peered through muggy eyes to watch as Anne happily made tea and munched on a slice of toast covered in grape jam. Her skin and hair were damp from an earlier shower, and her wrinkled nightclothes and slippers held her prancing at bay. In the hour of sunrise she carried a giddy vitality he could scarcely empathize possessing. Rubbing his eyes free of Morpheus's black dust of sleep, he grumbled out, _"You are _annoyingly_ energetic this morning…I can barely stagger out of bed, and here you are, dancing about like a faun…."_

The blind one spun around and bumped against him when she darted in the direction of his voice. He steadied her, amused despite his exhaustion; with a wide grin she "hmmed" and said, "Of course…that's the way this works: I have the perk of being imbued with extra energy to counteract your lingering fatigue. Sex takes a lot more out of you than me, Mewtwo."

"_Perhaps…it is that, or you have already consumed your fair share of the candy at this fine morning hour."_

His female permeated the atmosphere about her with mock offense as she crossed her arms, declaring: "I haven't touched dessert yet! I was waiting you to get your furry ass out of bed first…it's not _mine_ to share, after all."

With his telekinesis he summoned the tin from the other room, pulling off the cover to expose the peanut-brittle within. He took a piece gingerly from the metal container with his fingertips and held it against her lips. _"You are right…but I want you to enjoy the fruits of our labors anyhow."_

The Nakamura woman allowed him to feed her the shard of candy, and accepted his kiss her after she'd thoroughly enjoy the sweet. When they parted, Anne murmured in her exhalation, "…Tastes good…."

He was thoroughly pleased. _"It is nice to hear you agree with me that our effort to make something delicious was successful."_

"Hm? You mean the candy? Yes, that was sweet too," she agreed.

Her male smiled and lowered his muzzle, pressing his mouth to hers again quietly; she fit well in his arms, as if she belonged within their embrace. The thought made him feel happier standing in the sunlight filtering in from the windows than he had felt since he'd lingered under the golden rays as a child. Yes; the notion that someone could be his, and he her own, was a blessing he had never envisioned for himself, nor had expected to obtain the night he had rescued her from her attackers. He had never contemplated that their bond could deepen to this extent, but he found he couldn't mind when held in such bliss as he was now. Even with the threat of imminent suffering, the clone mused that perhaps living was not so cruel a thing after all, and that perhaps the light was easier to reach than he'd ever suspected. It was true that he was defying his very nature to remain with her as he was, but he ignored the voice telling him to leave before disaster struck. Being the only one of his species, he could decide for himself what part of his instincts to defy or follow…and staying with his lover, not leaving her now that she had given him all of herself, seemed like an apt choice to him. Monogamy; yes, like her kind, he wanted to follow that edict: one mate and only one for him to hold.

With a rare, true smile, he murmured Anne's name, filling his nostrils with her unique scents and hoping that the closeness they shared in the wondrous morning would not someday fade. Understanding that such a yearning was mutual, the meetings of their mouths grew more intent. The flavor of sugar and peanuts lingered on their tongues with the taste of apples long after they had parted to consume breakfast together. And after a time, desires formed in Mewtwo's mind which aligned to create a constellation of accomplishments to pursue…for he now wanted nothing more than to have not only found forgiveness, acceptance, and warmth…but also to earn redemption. He wanted to give Anne a gift in return for her whole-hearted love for a being such as he, who was only half a man. He resolved himself to his longing…someday he would make himself worthy of this partnership. It might take months or even years, but he would do as Anne had done for him: he would draw her from the shadows and provide her sacred light….

* * *


	6. Death

_**

* * *

**_

Sunday, June 11th of 2006 / 12:16 a.m.:

With the computer downloading several compressed files in the background, Mewtwo sat before a low table, which had been moved into the living room for the wanderer's use. The heavy tomes spread out before him were having their pages flipped at random intervals as their owner read through their surplus information. The texts were medical in nature, with sections upon theoretical procedures that bordered on the unethical or radical. The psychic one, intent as he was in his studies, scarcely noticed the hour or the woman who walked down the hall towards him. In her silken pajamas Anna Nakamura reached out a hand, feeling for the edge of the couch, and came to rest her palms on the hunched back of the male more precious to her than her beloveds could possibly comprehend. Her fingers and thumbs rubbed into his muscles in circular motions, undoing the knots, and kissing the back of his head she asked, "Are you planning on joining me sometime tonight? Because if I didn't know better, I'd _almost_ think you cared more about this research than me."

Her partner turned his head, taking one of her hands in a paw. _"I apologize, Anne…I am merely intent upon the task at hand. I assure you, while this project _is_ important to me, _you_ are far more meaningful…and as of such, these efforts are for your sake, not of a random musing."_

She lifted an eyebrow at him. "Really? You're studying medicine, Mewtwo. Just because my stomach's been acting up lately doesn't mean it's anything to worry about; at least not to the point of obsession," she teased. However, worry was in her voice that betrayed her irrational fear to him: that he might indeed find his current pursuits more intriguing than her. Years of disappointments from others had made some concerns inevitably stir into life when signs of neglect grew apparent….

The clone peered up at her with tired, strained eyes and replied, _"This study has nothing to do with a virus…but it is for you nonetheless; trust me."_

His beloved wrapped her thin arms around his shoulders from behind. "I do. Still, when you won't tell me what you're up to, I have every right to be suspicious."

Amusement now colored his voice. _"Anne, you are aware that this is to be a surprise."_

Regressing to a display of childish annoyance, she stuck the tip of her tongue out at him. "Uh-huh, and you won't even gives me any hints. How about this: we set some guidelines - even you have to rest your eyes, dear."

"_What do you suggest?"_ He inquired, leaning back and hearing his spine crackle as he did so - he grimaced at the popping noise.

So did Anne, and sighing she declared: "That you do this research while I'm at work or away visiting someone. Otherwise, I want to eat with you, talk with you, and have you in bed by eleven at the latest. Also, I rather want to wake up with you next to me, so no darting out of the covers at dawn. That way you won't ignore essential bodily needs while chasing your goal, which you have an annoying tendency to do," she stated, and then smirked, "And if you refuse to cooperate with my terms, I will not make the naked pretzel with you for at least a month. Sound fair?"

Mewtwo gave her a wry look at her one-sided negotiation, but mulling it over saw her point. _"…I suppose there is no rush to find the answers I need. Very well…I agree with your bargain."_

She smiled widely. "Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" And with that she drew him up from his seat on the couch, back down the hallway, and into the azure sheets of their bed….

Post lunchtime of the following day, as Anne prepared to meet with her doctor to discover the identity of the bug ailing her, Mewtwo had already picked up one of the still-open texts from the previous night. As he settled down at the table to read, Anne found him there, leaned over to kiss his cheek gently, and implored him not to strain his brain over the subject of his current worship. Not yet delved entirely into his research, the clone licked her face gently and asked her when she would return from her appointment; she guesstimated it would be roughly four p.m. at the very latest if she took the bus as her mate desired, taking into consideration her past experiences in the park. The woman merely rolled her lilac eyes and reassured him that she would be safe during the day – if something happened, after all, she owned her own taser and pepper-spray thanks to his worry. As she grabbed her cane and walked out the door with a light farewell, Mewtwo riffled through the computer playlists. The music files, containing an assortment of classical symphonies, helped him concentrate on the work before him. His journals were already half-filled with notes that outlined the procedure he was creating, listing the resources he would require, along with the possible assistance he would need to make the operation a success. There were still several problems to solve and materials to gather before he could even think of asking for Anne's consent concerning the matter, but each day brought him closer to a riskless, perfect surgery and the following physical therapy. His hopeful mind raced as his nerves fired over new revelations and comprehensions in the field that had always yielded him results to his wishes. Undoubtedly he was nearing an integral breakthrough, the hidden truths for whole understanding within his reach…and once clarity had been obtained, the possibilities he hunted would laid before him as tribute for his efforts. With them at his disposal Mewtwo would succeed where others had tried, had failed, and had ultimately forfeited.

This was all for her. With a determined expression, Mewtwo dove back into his research, oblivious to the fleeting hours in the process….

Within the local physician's office some time later, a stunned Anne Nakamura gaped at her doctor's confirmation of the condition she'd suspected herself to be in. She covered her mouth with a soft hand, her eyes shimmering with tears, and then the female began to laugh. She jumped up from her seat, embracing the man who seemed as pleased to deliver the news as she was to hear it. The woman who had lived for nearly a quarter of a century felt - more than her lingering exhaustion, her insatiable hunger, and the wooziness that plagued her - an unexpected joy she hadn't believed she'd be able to experience. The happiness blossoming in her chest filled her with liveliness, and she thanked the man profusely while trying to think of what to do next as her mind stumbled over itself in excitement. Leaving the building, she immediately decided that now was the only time to settle her brother's distaste for her choices, seeing as how his God had clearly consented to her union with the wanderer. Anne found that, as she explained the situation to Joseph, she couldn't gather up the ire with which she'd wanted to say to him, "I told you so." Instead, once she'd dialed his number on a nearby payphone (having never acquired a cell phone for fear of misplacing it) she confided her news to her sibling happily. She was too exhilarated to be sobered with anything he might say, regardless of his mixture of anger, revulsion, and fear from what her statements revealed to him.

Still, in the end her happiness made him soften. He sighed, telling her that he would accept her relationship with the pokemon even if he didn't find it tasteful. Grateful, she said a cheerful goodbye to him, hung up, and strode as quickly as she could to the bus stop, eager to return home to tell her beloved what the doctor had said. Her need only intensified as she stood in the salt-encrusted glass and plastic box with fellow pedestrians, waiting long minutes for the public transport vehicle to arrive. Her foot tapped impatiently as she asked the people next to her what time it was; then she gritted her teeth as she did the math and found she'd need to sit there for over thirty minutes yet for the bus to weave through the congested traffic. Only a couple blocks away were the borders of the park, so simply walking home would be quicker than waiting for a ride in the sluggish flow of traffic. Not wanting to waste anymore time, Anne made her decision, darting from the crowd and stuffing her money for the ride back into her pocket. Her cane whipped out against the concrete before her, her ears listening intently for the sounds of passing cars so she could determine where the roads crossed before her. Some people made way for her passage, yet eventually Anne had to resort to alleyway shortcuts to avoid the larger crowds that were prone to shoving during the day. Stepping from one of the labyrinth paths, hearing children screeching and laughing in the playground of the southwest corner of the park, Anne grinned with anticipation of arriving where Mewtwo waited. She stepped forward confidently, for few used the crosswalk she approached.

She didn't realize that her path was hindered; her foot tripped over another person's, and falling to the ground she twisted her wrist, and the soft flesh of her palm scrapped against concrete and grit. She hissed at the sudden flare of pain, reaching for her cane and apologizing for running into the other human. The male said nothing in return to assuage her, and she seized as she heard not one, but two pairs of footsteps at her sides and felt hard hands gripping her arms and pulling her to her feet. Anne thanked the men in a quavering voice, and excusing herself tried to suppress her shiver of wariness as she strode forward – only to be jerked by the hem of her coat, and shoved so she stumbled back into the alleyway, barely keeping her balance on the uneven ground. Realization surged with vertigo, and she fumbled for the pepper-spray in her pocket. As she listened to their approach she fired shots of the burning substance to where she believed their faces were. Yet no howls of pain and curses sounded success. A hand swiped out, knocking the small canister from her hand; she reached forward with the taser, firing the prongs into vulnerable flesh and shocking one of the harassers. The yowl that arose gave her hope of escape, and unable to go forward she charged south, seeking safety in the memorized turns and the main street they opened up to. She heard the males pursing her, their shoes crunching on litter and gravel, heard her roaring pulse and hitched breathing as she became another victim of a hunt. Adrenaline and desperation spurred her forward as she heard one pursuer call out a member of his team, ordering the plant type to ensnare her in its vines. The green ropes lashed out, constricting about her limbs and lifting her into the air, her thrashing and screaming for help useless as she was drawn to the trainers. As her feet brushed the ground, she felt a hand touch her chin, the fingers hard as they gripped her face. Peering at her, the man laughed at her spirit and thanked his pokemon for helping him catch "the little blind mousey." He returned the creature to its pokeball, making the released woman fall to the ground, her legs crumpling beneath her. Her grip on the taser tightened…she threatened to shock them again if they came near her.

The males paid no attention to her warning; she felt air motion as a hand grabbed her wrist. She attempted to twist free, but stony fingers dug painfully into the pressure point of her wrist. She fought not to drop the only thing that kept the men at bay, but releasing the device could not be avoided: it fell to the pavement below, quickly kicked away by the scuffing of a boot against the asphalt. Anne tried and failed to scramble away, finding herself enclosed by walls and the men on either side of the path. Her heart raced in her chest – this was bad. Knowing escape was unlikely, Anne began to shout for someone to help her, but even though the main road was only half a block away, none heard her screams. This was, in short, the worst part in living in a city: crimes could be committed only a few steps away from passerbies, and no one would ever realize it until a body was stumbled upon by a drunk. The woman's screams were cut off as she was pulled forward by her coat; a low growl arose, demanded her to be quiet. Shutting up was the last thing Anne was planning to do, and as she spit into the fellow's face and continued to shriek, she felt a hard blow across her face, her lip splitting from one of the rings upon the large fingers of the trainer. The shock and the taste of blood made her unseeing eyes widen as she hit the ground and rolled, a pained whimper gasped from her throat.

"…What…what do you _want_, you assholes?" she hissed, her fingertips digging into the gravel beneath her…it hurt…!

"…The little blind mousey dares talk to its superiors in such a disrespectful tone? It dares calls its better such a degrading name? It seems we were right: the mouse obviously desperately needs a lesson in manners."

The man grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled upwards, until the blood from her lip dripped onto the sharp pebbles beneath her. The first part of the lesson became clear after she felt the hard toe of a boot kicking into her ribcage and her spine, and after a bottle was broken against the wall and its jagged edges sliced across her cheek. Tears stung into her eyes, overflowed down her face, stinging the wounds with salt as she curled up quickly into fetal position, trying to defend her center and make herself smaller. She trembled as she heard more lessons filter into her ears, as more blows beat into her to impress the words into her. They mocked her surely "mongrel" nature, which to them was worse than any parasite race of humanity from the impurity of her mixed ancestry. They told her this blending was abominable, a heresy of nature, and should not be allowed to exist. "Mongrels" watered out blood, brought foreign traits into pure races, and they did not have a true place to belong. Hence, they provided no culture or unity to those they sought to contaminate with their genes. The attackers then accused her of sins she had never committed, of stealing from her benefactors, of likely prostituting herself to gain the perks she was given: the nice clothes; the well-made cane; the good treatment, evident from her cleanly person. Yet those flaws were not even her largest offense - the two despised her blindness. Though she hadn't been born with a deficiency of sight, as they pounded into her with their feet, fists, and the debris in the alleyway, they hissed at her unforgiveable insults. They declared that she hindered those around her, who were forced to pamper her for her weakness; they expressed that she was a waste of government money, which supported her handicapped nature; they growled that she wrongly earned the consideration that hard-working citizens were denied, merely because of sentimental pity concerning her frailty. They cried self-righteously that those who could not fend for themselves - the crippled, the mentally ill or deficient, the helpless elderly, among others they viewed to be weak - did not deserve to live and defile pure men and woman, and were a waste of resources that hindered human evolution. It certainly didn't help Anne that she was female, and so viewed as even weaker for her gender; though the ones beating her called her an "it," rather than acknowledge her as a person with a sex.

The only argument the pair had, incidentally over this fact, was one vile enough to make Anne vomit up bile, as she had regurgitated earlier a sour slime from the abuse. In the pause of debate her entire body stung and throbbed, her limbs torn from broken glass, and her muscles and eyes swollen with dark bumps and bruises from the blows. She could vaguely listen to their exchange over her gasps of pain…she had stopped begging them to stop well before this point….

The first man ran a shard of glass across her hand, slitting the creases of her open palm. "What else is there is teach it?" He asked. "I think we've fully covered the main points of our lecture: that the strong eat the weak. It is nature's holy law, and the mouse seems to grasp it rather well now. It isn't even trying to talk back anymore."

She heard a zipper go down and felt her muscles tense at the possibility of invasion. "If it wasn't so shattered we might consider having the little bitch-."

The other man snorted. "I don't think so – even a filthy whore would be better than this creature. Even when it looked halfway tasty it didn't make me get tight – it's disgusting to think about sticking my dick into any of its slime. No, I wouldn't let my body be defiled by this mouse, even if I was in bad need of a lousy fuck. It wouldn't even struggle and make it fun anyhow. Put it away – we'll buy some entertainment later. Let's finish this off already."

In the following minutes Anne's body broke further – ribs cracked from heavy strikes, phalanges splintered under stomping heels, and teeth were knocked from her jaw. Still the woman refused to let them touch her core; she curled up her twisted limbs, desperate to protect just one part of herself, begging for an Almighty power to not let them destroy the last shred of life and hope that remained within her. She had ceased to beg for Mewtwo to find her and save her. Her life - the years of childhood adventures, her years of study in school, of holidays with family and friends…all her precious recollections, even those concerning her lover, all had fled in her agony. Anne Nakamura only thought of the secret she tried to keep safe, to the extent of forfeiting her extremities to do so. Yet finally her attackers noticed this behavior over the blood flowing from her wounds, over her convulsing as her injured organs tried to sustain life. They tugged at her weak form until she was sprawled out before them, watched as she tried to gather herself together again…before slamming a harsh blow directly into her abdomen. She gagged up crimson vomit and black bile, her tortured breath gasped from her lungs. _No_…she despaired as her will shattered…_please, no_…! Her muscles cramped, and a warm, dark red flow spilled into her dirtied jeans…her tears started afresh as comprehension dawned. Thoroughly traumatized, her consciousness became intermitted, but Anne no longer cared if she woke from the assault. She doubted she would survive this…and now that she'd lost the joy she'd only just gained, there was no reason to keep living in a body more damaged than before. As she collapsed, her form sinking into the gravel, her attackers spat and urinated on the ground near her, defiling her in further insult, and in a show of contempt for another human being. They left her there under the hot sun to die, not caring for what her fate might be; murder brought no qualms to those inured to exterminating who they viewed as unworthy of life. Their twisted psyches, nearing depravity, saw nothing amiss with their actions or the blood coating their hands….

Half an hour earlier, Anne's beloved had pried himself from his research and had noted how late she was in coming home. Feeling the tingling of worry, he had cast out his senses, searching for her aura and calling out for her telepathically across numerous miles – yet he received no answering thoughts. As anxiety gathered within him for her sake, for sunset was a merely three hours away, he left the apartment to scour her usual hangouts to see if she was frequenting any of the areas. Upon not finding her, his concern mounted. Something was wrong; she should have returned to the apartment earlier, or at least would have called and left a message to inform him of a change in plans. Yet her disappearance and utter silence aroused his fear, and he swept through the streets and alleyways between the doctor's office and their home with increasing uncertainty. His telepathic voice grew saturated with desperation – _where was his mate?_ Finally Mewtwo caught her tell-tale scent as he neared the park, and as he flew to her his heart pounded with panic as the odor of blood tainted the aroma thickly. She was hurt, weak, perhaps on the threshold of death, and how she had come to the verge without his realizing it he could not comprehend. Turning around one last corner he viewed the crumpled body in the gravel; the air in his lungs froze as he saw it was her, barely recognizable in her wounds. His levitation broke and landing he darted to her, drawing her limp form into his arms. He ordered her to awaken, for sleep would undoubtedly equal death if she drifted off in this state.

Hearing his voice Anne stirred, coughing up blood and seeming to realize who held her so tenderly, as if afraid that touching her would shatter her completely. She whimpered his name and apologized; in turn he shushed her, urging her to focus on breathing and remaining conscious. At this point she had passed the ache of her injuries; instead her darkened flesh and caked hair were freezing through blood-loss and cellular damage. Her person couldn't handle more signals of pain - the brain shut down the neurons receiving the messages, leaving her powerless and cold. So she clung to the sound of her love's racing heart, feeling him quivering with horror and rage, and heard him pleading for her to hold on. The world around them was silenced in icy stillness, then reformed itself into the bitter scents of antiseptics and garbled conversations. She heard Mewtwo demanding for someone to attend to her, felt her body being placed on a gurney, which was rolled into an emergency room. Her form was stripped of her sordid clothes, her marred skin washed clean of bodily fluids, her wounds patched up with bandages, and several pints of donated blood infused into her arteries. Numbness pervaded her as she was given heavy doses of analgesics, but her emptiness remained, eating her alive. It seemed to her that the attempts of the doctors to save her were half-hearted, yet as their procedures were completed and she was allowed to rest, she found she didn't care anymore: like with her body, her attackers had destroyed her spirit….

After she was carried into a private room, and then hooked up to life-support systems and critical monitoring units, the cloaked Mewtwo looked through the doorway, spying the sorrowful gaze the head physician was regarding him with. Quietly, his tone low and listless, the clone spoke. _"…There is nothing more you can do for her, is there? No healing abilities that can help her now that she's this far gone…."_

The doctor placed a comforting hand upon the guardian's shoulder, believing the creature to be her pokemon, though he comprehended the bond was deeper than mere mistress-and-servant. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "We've done everything we can, but…her body is collapsing from the trauma it experienced. Several vital organs were ruptured, and she had profuse internal bleeding... We may have bought her some time; however…she has maybe five hours left at most. We called her family – they're flying back from their vacation as we speak, but they probably won't arrive in time to - to send her off."

"…_I understand. Could you…not interrupt us? I would like to spend what time I have left with her alone…,"_ the clone whispered, the grief within him slowly pervading his person with a chill of despair that made it hard for him to move or breathe. It was as if someone with frozen claws was burrowing a cavity in his chest from the inside out….

The man nodded. "Of course. I'll lock the door behind you."

His head bowed, the clone stepped forward into the white room, and sat in the chair beside the bed where his mate lay motionless. The heart monitor beeped steadily in the background, the green line of light jumping in slow paces, with the drip of the IV filtering useless nutrients and drugs into Anne's system to allow her demise to be of fabricated peace. The feline took her cool hand in a paw as the door snicked shut, and stared at her charts and the feed of the machines in deepening hopelessness. Both sources listed the internal injuries Anne hadn't the ability to heal; expressed how her barely mended organs had seeped blood and toxins into her system; and showed that her pulse was weakening steadily. As he watched her chest undulate in shallow breathes, as he gazed upon the stained bandages she was wrapped in – more to hide her gruesome injuries than to act as tourniquets – he understood that even if he took her from this place and tried to save her himself, she would not live past the dawn. His efforts would fail…only a power far greater than he could save the woman, and God did not seem inclined to do such. She was dying; his Anne, as the evening began to darken the sky, would perish unless a miracle occurred that would somehow salvage her from eternity….

His expression contorted in agony at the knowledge, he reached forward, gently brushing her wet hair behind her ears, remembering all the times he had stroked those soft locks. He memorized her features now, as distorted as they were: white rolls of gauze hid the shadowed color of her flesh; her face was swollen terribly from the strikes it had endured; her limbs were placed in simply slings; her body clothed in a blue patient's outfit. Slowly he slid from his chair into the uncomfortable, thin hospital bed beside her, watching her almost comatose sleep, wondering if he would be blessed with a chance to speak with her one last time. He wrapped his tail and an arm about her loosely, not wanting to put pressure on her hurts, though he desperately longed to embrace her close and somehow make her stay with him. His throat constricted painfully, and he gasped out a quiet little sound of grief, curling himself against her and breathing in what little remained of her apple scent. Closing his eyes when they began to sting, he could hear the sound of gurneys rolling in the halls outside the small room, of doctors and their teams shouting, and of announcements made over the loudspeakers, the noises muffled by the walls between them. He ignored these distractions, choosing to focus entirely upon his dear one. This should not have happened…she had just been going to an appointment, in the middle of the day at that, and the path she had taken was barely a few steps from the main streets…! She should not have been targeted and assaulted…she should have come home to him, greeted him, smiled and laughed, and then shared tea and dinner with him. She should have returned and told him what her doctor had said, not turned up beaten in an alleyway…! Blame lay heavily upon him for not going with her, even though Anne had insisted against it, but he shoved it away. He had years ahead of him to bear the guilt of his absence from her side and the result of that mistake…he had only hours left with his mate now.

Around eight in the twilight, Anne stirred slowly, her heartbeat picking up from the movements and her return to reality. Even if she could see with them, her eyes were too swollen to open, and she coughed quietly at first, flecks of blood decorating her lips. She tilted her head from side to side, twitching her body, and even though her form should have been blissfully numbed, she winced noticeably. Mewtwo said her name quietly; only then did she seem to realize someone was holding her carefully. The woman turned her face towards his warmth, her nose brushing his muzzle. Her mouth twisted into what he supposed was a half a smile, and she murmured quietly, "Mewtwo…I knew you were there…just like in the park that first time, I knew…."

Her beloved brushed a kiss to her lips softly, tasting the wretched, copper flavor of them. _"Yes…I will always be here, Anne."_

She tremblingly reached a palm upwards, feeling the contours of his face. "…You're so sad…. I'm sorry…I'm so sorry I didn't wait for the bus…I just wanted to get home…I wanted to come home to tell you…."

He pressed his face to hers, murmuring out quietly at her strengthening distress, _"What, dearest? Tell me what?"_

She bowed her head and buried her face into his collar…he felt the hot wet of tears spread into his fur. She quivered softly in his arms, gasping out between fragile sobs, "It – it doesn't matter…not anymore…."

The clone gritted his teeth, trying not to moan out a low sound that would voice his despair…but she could feel it in the tension of his neck and face that he was choking down the noise of a mourning animal. She whispered out slowly in response, trying to smile bravely as she did so. "…I'm going to die, aren't I?"

He didn't want to say it aloud. He didn't want to admit that very soon he would lose her to merciless death…but no one else could tell her, and she wanted him to answer her inquiry, even if she already comprehended the truth without his saying a single word. After a few horrible seconds, he managed to gasp out, _"…Yes."_

Anne listened to his heartbeat, to the shaky breaths he filled his lungs with...she clutched him weakly with her broken fingers and murmured to him, "Then I'm glad that I got to wake up. I want to spend time with you…just a little bit longer…."

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gasped and wept, whispering his name repeatedly. She asked him to tell her family that she loved them and would miss them; she pled for him to know this was her fault for making a stupid choice, not his; she apologized for not being able to share the rest of his life with him; she begged him not to return to how he was before, cold and homeless. He reassured her that he would obey her wishes, told her that everything would be okay (even though he knew it never would be anymore), and licked away her tears in the most tender touches he could give her. He knew that his mate didn't want to die now, and shouldn't die now- she was too young, too pure, too kind…but she was going to die anyhow because of the cruelty of her fellow human beings. Nothing he could do could change that fact…nothing could draw her from the abyss she was facing. His entire being cried for there to be a Heaven, for her not to be utterly lost to existence…he wanted there to be a paradise for her soul to depart to, not for her to merely fade into blackness as though she had never been. If anyone had earned the right to an afterlife in a realm of bliss, it was his Anne. He shook as he held onto her broken form, listening as her sobs quieted and her words ran out. Finally, she merely lay in his arms, her hands against his face, and clung close to him for warmth and solace. He did precisely the same thing, unwilling to drift away from her as the minutes passed and the firmament outside began to grow black. Finally, so softly he nearly missed it even with his sharp hearing, Anne breathed, "…What time is it?"

Mewtwo lifted his head, staring down at her quietly. _"…It is 8:36 p.m.. Why do you ask?"_

"I'm just wondering…if the sun is gone already. Most people die at sunset…."

He pressed his mouth to her drying hair, saying, _"Out of the window, the sun has just met the horizon...so it is not quite night yet."_

Again, there was another strained smile. "Ah…I see. I wish - I wish I could see a sunset again, Mewtwo. They were always so wonderful…and if I could see one now then I'd know when…when it was happening…."

The male's eyes stung, a fleeting thought forming in his mind. _"Hold onto me,"_ he whispered, and carefully sat up, lifting her into his arms. As he walked slowly towards the window, the intravenous unit rolled with them, the other machines the woman was hooked up to were levitated closer to the clear pane of glass so he could carry her there unhindered. He stopped before it, opening the curtains with his powers to look out into the gloom. Though skyscrapers and trees partly obscured the view of the sun sinking into the bluffs, the view was pleasant enough to behold: the clear sky strewn with a few cottony clouds of angel wing gold and mother of pearl pink, the western stretches mixing peach and cream-yellow hues around a grapefruit-colored sun. The skies beyond the glowing celestial kingdom were dusty grey and navy that deepened into inky ebony, which threads of lavender among the wispy cirrus formations. The full moon, growing brighter as minutes passed, mingled crimson tones with harvest orange; and snowy pinpricks of appearing stars floated silently in the murk of shadows. It was a gorgeous sunset, worthy of Anne's final desire…with deliberation he charged a skill he had acquired in recent months, learned in the hopes of giving his partner a taste of a now unobtainable future. It was a gift he had meant to present her with on her next birthday - it allowed a part of his mind to flow into hers, providing her brain with information her maimed eyes could not provide. His female jerked in shock as the image of what he was seeing began to form in her mind, and then she stilled as light, colors, and depth arranged into the view of the outside landscape. Her breathing quavered, and her mouth trembled no longer from sorrow but from utter surprise and joy. A small gasp escaped her throat as she took in what Mewtwo was seeing, and she said to him, "What…how is this…?"

"…_It is called 'Sight-Sharing.' Two bonded individuals can see through one another's eyes once a connection is forged. This…this was not how I meant its first true use to be…,"_ he explained, keeping his gaze focused on the pastel-hued firmament around the setting sun. If he looked down he would have to sever the connection, and he refused to do so, because Anne wanted to see the sunset, not her damaged self. So as much as he wanted to gaze upon her, he refused to look away: this was the only way he could ease the process of death…this was the only thing he could do for her now. Nothing more could give her the comfort she needed to accept her unfortunate fate….

Anne smiled into his chest, enrapt on the images he fed to her mind. "It's…it's beautiful…thank you, Mewtwo, thank you…!"

As they watched, the colors of the sky darkened as the glowing orb of the sun inched it descent behind the towering hills. The clouds were stained to deep orange and vibrant red, the firmament bleeding into a tangerine flush, navy and lavender shifting into a dusty pyrite from the electric lights flickering on in the city. Distantly Mewtwo heard the pulsing of the heart-rate monitor beginning to slow, the detected beats weaker and farther apart, and could feel his lover's motions begin to grow smaller and more infrequent as she began to truly still. The waters of the tears he had tried to keep at bay now filled his eyes, but as the world blurred he did not blink, content to allow them to overflow so he could continue to stare into the sky, even though he could feel the connection with Anne's quieting mind fading. This was the second time in his life in which he had wept, and the source was the death of yet another female he valued more than life. In intolerable anguish his breathing became ragged as grief strangled him, and he trembled softly, a thing Anne could feel as well as the droplets of his tears against her cheeks. She turned her face upwards, kissing his muzzle softly, her hands resting against his chest…her strength was slowly evanescing along with her ability to see the dreamlike image her dearest gave her. Anne Nakamura felt some fear as she felt her body begin to sink into eternal sleep, her ability to move restrained from the dark blankets bundling her in lukewarm sensations…but the shock of terror vanished with acceptance of her end. She had lived a full life, a good life, and would leave it with no regrets, for she had loved those around her with all she had, and had made each day of her existence a precious thing. Yes, she wanted to live, but her continued existence was not her choice to make. She buried her face into her beloved's fur, smelling his cinnamon scent. She mused that watching the sunset, lying in her mate's arms, and bearing no fear of the beyond was the best way she could die…there was no pain now, only limited sorrow. Slowly she breathed out, sighing into him…she was going to miss him above all others, and the life they might have had together, had they been given the chance….

"_Anne…I love you."_

She smiled as she felt herself slipping away, as sensations died and thoughts faded, "…I know, darling…I know…."

Only a few moments later Mewtwo felt the connection between them vanish, and though he tried to hold onto the pieces of her psyche, they slipped through his mental fingers like smoke or water. Her mind went dark, her aura fading away, until finally her form sagged into his arms and the resounding tone of a machine no longer finding its charge's heartbeat filled the room. With his mind the clone reached out, turning off the now useless devices, and unattached the cords and needles from her with a barely conscious knowledge of what he was doing. As the tubes fell away Mewtwo gathered Anne's body closer, unafraid now of paining her, and finally bowed his head and closed his eyes. The shaking he'd been experiencing earlier strengthened until he quivered noticeably, his breath hitching and fluid flowing freely from his eyes and nostrils. His throat, his chest, everything hurt now to the point where he wanted to howl, and so with abandon he moaned out the shallowest sounds of anguish and grief at the loss of the female who had given him everything he could have yearned for in another. The inhuman sound of soulful suffering could never sum up the hurt and despair that now flooded throughout him in turbulent waves, erasing all logic thought as random images arose in his mind and suffocated him. He saw Anne sitting across from him and drinking tea, laying down the laws of her household; of her sitting beside him late into the night, discussing with him the aspects of her life that he had missed; of Anne holding him through drug withdrawal and offering him her forgiveness; of her crying over her family's rejection of him and later spending Christmas feeding him cookies a friend had baked; of her pecking him on New Year's Eve and then making love with him after the peanut-brittle incident. He could recall how tenderly she'd whispered her love for him, and the months afterwards when they had shared indescribable joys: touching, smiling, laughing, and giving one another happiness that glowed of iridescent light in the darkness he was now drowning in. The clone had wrongly believed he had years to spend with her in such pleasure and contentment…but now she was dead, his love, his angel, his Anne. Yet still he held onto her long after she had exhaled her last breath…long after the last of the sun's light had vanished into the gathering dark…long after her body began to cool…he held on….

A broken voice murmured the name. "_Anne_…Anne…!"

His tears, it seemed, held none of the restoring life that would bring her back to him; yet even though it was futile to hope for a miracle, he wept bitterly, thinking of how she deserved the blessing. But the sorrow in his crumbling heart could not resurrect her…she was gone, dead because someone had deemed her an easy victim, unworthy of life…. And just like that, the thought clung in his tormented mind where everything else was washed away. Rage became a malicious undertow in the sea of hopelessness crushing him, and the fiery feeling was something he clung to in order to banish the cold. He remembered then that she would not be dead if not for the ones who had beaten her. Someone had murdered her heartlessly and had left her to die in a pool of her own blood in a grimy alleyway, her body shattered on shards of glass. Rage morphed into hate, hate evolved into murderous intentions…he would make the culprit suffer tenfold the pain the individual had inflicted upon his mate. The clone would stalk the predator down and kill him slowly until he begged for the death that he'd forced Anne to succumb to. His tears drying, Mewtwo stepped over to the bed, hugging Anne's form close before laying her down, arranging her arms until her right hand covered her left upon her breast, and slowly cloaked her up to her neck in the white sheet. If only her chest would rise and fall she could be resting and recovering…but the stillness gave lie to his desire for this to be nothing more than a horrible dream. He leaned down, softly kissing her eyelids and mouth, and straightened, giving her corpse one final look before stepping away. The doctor waiting outside of the door started as he stormed out, and the clone paused for but a moment to say in a hoarse voice, _"The E.T.D. is 8:46 p.m.. Please, take care of her body until her family arrives, and tell them…inform them that she died peacefully and without fear."_

He did not wait to hear the man's answer. He teleported back to the alley, and from there the hunt began.

In his black fury, Mewtwo would only come to remember fractured memories of the hours following his mate's death. Some incidences would be far bolder in his mind than others, but in general it was a night where he allowed the cruel part of his psyche – called the "lizard brain" by biological scientists – to run his actions. Following both the scent of the two males whose hands had become stained with the woman's blood, as well as led by the strengthening threads of their signature aural wisps, the clone wove through the maze of alleyways and backstreets until he was led deep into the squalid neighborhoods of the Projects of the capital. Brothels and pubs were commonplace, clustered together in grimy boxes of brick and cracked glass, where more rich warehouses were converted into the residences of squatters or made into the casinos, run by the wealthy mired deep into the business of drug smuggling and prostitution. Many of these kingpins had multiple high crimes placing bounties upon their heads, ranging from federal theft to blackmail to terrorism to selective serial murders and rapes. Some were treasonous to the government, seeking to overthrow a limping system which on the outside gleamed with a pearly gloss, but on the inside rotted in a gallimaufry of blackish sludge and fungi, representative of capital crimes allowed to pass due to fear or offered cash. Yet the cloaked one had no qualms with the plantation owners of criminal affairs and products: he was after two underling men who had unwittingly invoked the wrath of a demon for their crimes. From around him he heard the shouts of violent arguments and denting metal, smelled black oil and the odor of impure sex, more than once breathed in fumes of a myriad of synthetic substances…but he did not care for these outside things. All he saw, all he knew, was the dark anger he seemed to look out from, the emptiness of his soul, and the filthy threads of the two unlucky, feculent individuals whose cockiness didn't allow them the thought that they would be punished for their sins.

Yet soon enough they would be made to pay…as he came to the locked door of one of the casinos, the door painted with a stark, crimson "R," he snarled, and ignoring the pistol pointed at him by the doorman, his tail lashed out and snapped the guard's neck. A mangling burst of telekinetic energy tore open the iron entranceway and reduced the walls surrounding it into a blend of blue fire, rubble, and searing ash. He could hear screams from inside as he walked into the thick smoke, his eyes glowing azure, and as he drifted into the building he sensed immediately the aims of the gun barrels the bouncers trained on him, as well as the scopes of a few snipers focused on his person. He pinpointed each glint of metal and fired shots of pyrokinetic energy down the glossy tunnels – the gunpowder exploded from within, taking off fingers and shattering the weapons into lethal shards of piercing metal. Many fell, but again Mewtwo found he did not care about this matter. His luminous eyes swept over the casino's interior, taking in the sight before him. Most of the humans, women in skimpy dresses and men who had been enjoying their favors while playing games of dice and cards, now ran for the exits or rooms where they hoped to find safety. Yet those within the private areas were now stumbling out from the noises of screams and crashing furniture, half-dressed or nude as they leaned out the doors. Eyes widened with panic and anger, and released pokemon prepared attacks to slay the interloper. The braver, or more foolish creatures, stepped forward through spilled drinks, broken crystal, and ashtrays towards him. The clone, in this moment, saw no life as worthy of sparing; all these beings were doing was getting in the way of his goals. He quartered them no mercy for the fatal mistake – his psychical energies lashed out, piercing flesh and wood and stone. Random images caught his eyes: a burning table flying into a wall and crushing a whore and her benefactor fleeing up the stairs; a Venomoth engulfed in white flames, its body cremated in a fraction of a second; a man's head blown off by a shot of psycho-electrical energy that cauterized the severed neck into a stump of shiny red flesh.

Through the confusion and horror, the auras of the living and dying mingled, making it difficult for Mewtwo to pinpoint his targets. Yet as the warehouse was abandoned, a majority of its occupants massacred or having fled, he found the two in a group of trainers who persisted in fighting a losing battle. He teleported the others deep into the nearby river, their forms halfway buried in the muck of the polluted riverbed, and then used his powers to tear apart the pokemon the remaining pair released. Limbs and gore struck the shield he had erected, the dark crimson wash of blood splattered against the unyielding surface. He backed them against the wall as they grappled for the weapons they had besides their now deceased teams – they were cussing, crying, shrieking at him to come no closer. Mewtwo sealed the exits before the thought of running had fully formulated in their minds. Knives and bullets flashed his way as escape became unobtainable, but the metals could not penetrate the curved barrier – they melted upon impact. Eventually realizing they were faced with an unstoppable force, the men fell to their knees and cowered, begging for the mothers that they had forsaken in years past, when they had entertained dreams of furthering careers in the criminal world. The clone sneered at them as he stood before them…he noted that the pants of one grew wet from involuntary urination, and heard the prayers of his companion.

"_Do you think God will save you?"_ He snarled. _"I think not - if there is an afterlife you will most certainly know an eternal suffering in Hell for your crimes, not Heaven."_

"…Why the fuck won't it die…why the fuck won't it die…?" One murmured, in near delirium as he gazed with wide eyes at the fiery destruction around the trio, at the useless bullets and weapons that lay scattered across the sullied carpet. Nothing had touched the monster before him….

The other, presumably the dominant of the two, managed to gather enough gall to glare up at the devil and ask, "What do you want with us…fuck, what _are YOU_?"

Mewtwo, from the depths of transient insanity, remembered a quote in that moment that seemed entirely fitting, _"…'I am become Death'…."_

The monster lifted the men from the ground, their beings quaking at the thought of imminent agony and death. He murmured to them that this punishment and subsequent execution was in exchange for their one sin he could not ignore or overlook: earlier in the day, they had trapped an innocent woman who could not see, proceeded to humiliate her and mock her, and had pummeled her to death. She had been the wrong person to target, for she had been his, and had been the only creature who had kept his primal nature in check. For murdering _her_ they would be made to suffer her same indignities and injuries, with ten times the intensity of torment, but first he asked them why. Why had they chosen to beat _her_ to death? What crime had she committed that they deemed made her undeserving of life and happiness? The weaker man was rambling, his mind broken, but the other, now comprehending his mistakes, told the creature that she had died because she had been a weak link in the chain of humanity. As a blind individual, she was one of the frail who were meant to be used and destroyed by stronger beings. The clone bristled, his fury flaring high and searing, enough that he almost considered dispatching the pair in that moment of wavering control. Yet he refrained and hissed, _"And you believe yourself to be strong? You are a disgrace, not only to your own species but also to lesser beasts. With your crooked believes you kill, rape, steal…you are worse than a rabid wolf, for it at least has the disease destroying its brain and its predatory instincts as an excuse for the bloodshed it creates. Even healthy it murders and maims only to feed itself and its pack. Yet you…you inflict torment for your own sick, twisted pleasures…."_

The psychic bore into the man's mind, hearing the man scream from mental rape as he did so. He listed the unspeakable sins committed under the faiths the cur's superiors had instilled upon him, from parricide to the molestation of a little boy - who'd only asked for money to buy bread – to jumping new members into the growing cult that was Giovanni's gang. The pitiful abhorrence had felt gratification and pride in those incidences, never regretting or dwelling on what he had done. Not until he realized he was sentenced to death for ravishing a woman only a few years younger than he did he beg for forgiveness. Yet the clone, unlike Anne, did not forgive or forget. He said as much to the pathetic creature as he forced the man to watch his partner writhe and keen while telekinesis imploded his organs one by one within him, starting with non-vital tissues until the lungs, heart, and brain were burst. Tossing the silent corpse away, that left only the cocky one hanging before the demon. Quietly, the monster said, _"The woman you callously victimized was far stronger than you were: she was purer, kinder, blessedly good…and yet you broke her because she could not see? You are damned a thousand times over now…for let me make assure you, though her eyes were no longer capable of sight, she could still see into people with ease. Without their appearances in the way of her judgment, she could view their very cores and determine who was worthy of existence. You, on the other hand, know nothing of her clarity."_

"_You never will."_

Mewtwo murdered the man with far more deliberation than the other – he gouged out the eyes first, reflecting Anne's suffering onto the male, and then he tore pieces of flesh from the man's bones in random intervals and places, layer by layer, listening to the worm's screams of excruciating pain until he had heard the male beg for death a dozen separate times. Finally, he dealt the blow the underling had yearned for, tearing a rib from the exposed skeleton and burying it deep into the palpitating, blackened heart. The human died in seconds, sagging in the grip of Mewtwo's powers. The clone released the body, watching the corpse crumble onto the floor, imprinting the expression of utter terror engrained on its half a face in his memory. He had avenged his beloved thoroughly, though he felt far from soothed. As he turned away, he murmured the second part of the quote as he surveyed the destruction he had wrought, musing that indeed the quote was fitting. As far as the murdered were concerned, he truly was: _"…'the destroyer of worlds'…."_

Afterwards the utterance he closed his eyes and disappeared long before the police arrived on the hellish scene….

* * *


	7. Forget Me Not

_**

* * *

**_

Sunday, June 18th of 2006 / 12:17 p.m.:

Nearly a week had passed since what the public were calling the "Casino 057 Massacre," and in that time the one who had unleashed the bloodshed had cut himself off almost entirely from the outside world. He paid very little attention to the newsreels broadcasting the gruesome images of the slaughter, or the shaky evidence that futilely tried to tie the murders to the culprit. For the first couple of days the streets below the apartment and throughout the metropolis were patrolled by law enforcement vehicles, the flashes of red lights filtering into windows as if trying to illuminate the guilty individual. Adults and children, usually in crowds, were far scarcer on the sidewalks, scared away from the office and into their homes. Yet life went on surprisingly quickly for Viridian City's residents, so inured to crime, as if the deaths of dozens were no more frightening than the corpse of a rabbit who didn't make it across the street safely. Tours and businesses continued; citizens laughed and traded gossip; and the weather was mockingly cheerful and sunny throughout the weekdays. When Mewtwo at last emerged from his home of nearly a year, he had cleansed the grime from his fur and wore his full cloak. His appearance was gaunt and haunted from his loss and the result personal negligence: he had not eaten since the day of Anne's death, had drank fluids sparingly, and had only stirred from fitful sleep in the bed he had shared with his mate to use the restroom with decreasing frequency. He suspected that after the next few hours he would fully succumb to his grief and listlessness for life, for he had found that even after he had obtained vengeance for his companion's sake, he had gained no relief from the emotions wrecking havoc to his spirit. The anguish of despair persisted, along with thoughts of shame – while he had no regrets over the crimes he had so recently committed, he knew Anne would have been terribly disappointed in his actions. Still, the murderers had been made to reap what they had sown, and had martyred the theory they'd placed their faith in: the weak were eaten by their betters. He supposed they had never once thought of themselves as potential prey, but that was well beside the point, except as a note of irony he cared nothing for.

As he wandered in the shade cast across the downtown streets, avoiding the light and influencing the minds around him to turn their eyes from him to obtain near invisibility, he found his way to one of the flower shops. There he bought and arranged a small bouquet of flowers: in the center was a bundle purple heliotrope, surrounding that a few strands of light blue forget-me-nots, and about those were clusters of white arbutus and orange blossoms. He knew that Anne would not have wanted him to leave her roses. She had once told him that while she liked the flowers as much as any woman, she preferred a floral gift to be more imaginative than that – she was not one to swoon for clichés. He found it somewhat humorous that the types of flowers commonly symbolizing devotion, fidelity, innocence, memories, and above all everlasting love would coincidentally match his coloring, yet it seemed fitting in this case. With her he had never thought of drifting from her side, and indeed had been pure in his affections…he had been like any other male, hopelessly delighted to be with his female. Now he would hold her in his thoughts, always, for that was the only way she could continue to live in this world with him: in his wounded heart.

He found his way to the temple address her brother had left in his telephone messages when Mewtwo had not come to the visitation. The clone had been too distraught to go, even if he might have somehow been welcomed by Anne's friends and family. Once inside the hallowed place, he teleported into the rafters, watching the funeral ceremony from there hollowly, the working part of his mind memorizing the details of the procession. The casket, he had immediately noticed, was closed – perhaps that had been different at the wake, but he found himself grateful of the decision to no longer view the body. While he was certain the morticians had done their job well, making Anne as lovely as she had been before the attack with their embalming manipulations of science and art, he did not want to look upon her corpse again. Having experienced her death first-hand was more than enough for him to bear. To witness any attempt to hide the cruelty of her demise would merely sicken him further…and he doubted his heavy heart could bear the sight of his mate again without him losing what resolve he now possessed. Turning his thoughts away from such ruminations, he saw that the benches were not entirely full, though dozens dressed in black had come to say words of remembrance and give tributes for the lost woman. Wails were smothered behind handkerchiefs and tissues, embraces were exchanged among the crying individuals, and the humanist officiant spoke comforting words to the hurting ones.

It struck Mewtwo at some point that the funeral – though in a holy place as it was - did not so much represent their differing religious beliefs but Anne's: no words were spoken referencing a higher power or the afterlife, no hymns or sutras were sung, and no prayers were offered for an eternal soul. The clone understood that while to some it might seem an impersonal thing, Anne would have wanted the ceremony this way – it acknowledged her skepticism of religion and her desire not to conflict the clashing beliefs of her family with her death rites. As well, it honored her life regardless of the lack of an Almighty: mourners recalled memories past of the female, read from the favorites passages of books and poems she had enjoyed, offered quotes of her words and the words she had lived by. In those two hours her life was celebrated more than most received for heroic deeds, as far as he was concerned, until it was finally time for the cremation both Mewtwo and Anne had agree on wanting for their bodies when the time came. Rotting in the ground had been an unappealing concept to them both…. The casket was carried out of the temple to the nearby crematorium, and over the next two hours he watched, keeping himself separate from the others, as the flames consumed what had been his lover. Finally, the carbon ashes and bones were gathered into two urns: the grey dusts of one to be scattered in Anne's cherished places from her childhood, then the rest divided between branches of the family and some placed in her shop; while the other containing her bones would be buried beneath her headstone, in a small plot near the family grave. The matter of ash division would be dealt with later – for now, the mourners made their way to the cemetery. From a distance, Mewtwo followed them up the steps, weaving between the rows of stones until Anne's headstone, engraved with her name, came into sight. He hung back, an outcast even now as he mourned with them the death of someone who had done nothing to merit the end she had come to. Through the air in the following minutes, a sound above the weeping drifted towards him, making him need to lean into the trunk of one of the nearby apple trees which was losing its blossoms, their light petals drifting in the wind….

The mourners were singing Anne's favorite song…:

"…'10,000 miles / My own true love / 10,000 miles or more / The rocks may melt / And the seas may burn / If I should not return'…."

He tilted his face upwards, staring through the boughs of the apple tree, seeing the patches of blue sky and the half-shadow of the near invisible moon that defied the sun by hanging above the horizon during the day. Songbirds twittered in the nearby forest, their whistles and calls saccharine and lively, and squirrels raced across the grass and up the bark of the trees. From the streets below he could hear the laughter of children and the wailing of a hungry infant. The sun glowed white over the landscape benevolently, the scattered clouds in the sky mere motionless wisps that could never offer shade or the threat of rain. There was no respectful silence over the world in acknowledgement of the tragedy that had taken place; no grey misery of a gathering rainstorm reflected the sorrow of those who had lost their daughter, sister, friend, and lover; no volcanic fire heralded the end of Earth now that she would not return as the lyrics of the song promised. The universe, life itself, went on without Anne, as if she was a meaningless trifle that held no value…and with a heavy heart the pokemon understood that to existence that was precisely what she was – insignificant. She was a mere particle of sand in the desert of matter and time. It was only in the hearts and minds of those who had believed her precious that she mattered. No one else cared, and suddenly a new thought made him smile wryly in utter revulsion: a single life was of no consequence to the populace unless that being had done unspeakable evil or preformed what miracles mortals were capable of…and not even the loss of dozens, hundreds, thousands, was of consequence after only half a decade. The atrocities of genocide, of natural disasters, of mass suicides, of public shootings or bombings: the deaths became a statistic after the initial shock and horror had faded, and with the loss of disbelief came the absence of civic unity, selfless giving, and deep feelings rooted in the very fibers of the heart. The worst case scenarios once believed unthinkable became commonplace, and in the end those left standing became cruel and indifferent except to their own personal suffering. They cared only for themselves…not for the less fortunate, not for the terminally ill, not for the soldiers who fought their wars for them…and certainly not for a woman they did not know. Mewtwo's clutch on the flowers in his paw tightened…the thought that anyone could move on now that his beloved had perished was intolerable. Yet even the people before him, who wept as they sang and held each other close, would move forward in their lives. He doubted he could do the same…after all, what would he do, and where would he go? He had run dry of ambitions months before he had reacquainted himself with Anne Nakamura, using her as a last effort to connect with his past and search for a future. Yet now fragile dreams he had been forming in his soul, the ones in which he shared the remainder of his years with the human female, were now dashed into the shadows of impossibility. He could return to his previous life of wandering, but the concept held none of the attraction it once had possessed in such abundance - it offered nothing of what he yearned to regain….

"…'Oh don't you see / That lonesome dove / Sitting on an ivy tree / She's weeping for / Her own true love / As I shall weep for mine'…."

The mourners set piles of flowers and little offerings upon the individual headstone, and the smell of incense drifted through the wind and caressed the little white petals floating down to the concrete ground. As the humans spoke the last words of their goodbyes to the lost one, they began to file out of the confines of the graveyard, beginning with those who were not as deeply attached to the woman: fellow students from childhood who had lost touch; distant relatives who had only seen glimpses of the female; work acquaintances who had balanced their relationship between formalities and friendliness. The last to leave were Anne's immediate family and her close friends who had helped her run her shop, which now lay in their cradling hands. These beloved people in Anne's life departed with evident reluctance, as if lingering by her grave might somehow ease the weight of their grief. Yet eventually they did go, for there was still much to be done in the wake of the blind one's funeral. Once they had disappeared down the stairs, stepping through the gates surrounding the residence of the deceased, the verses of the melody still seemed to linger about the headstone as Mewtwo wandered forward to stand before the gray pinnacle. He knelt down with the weary motions of one eight times his age, letting his fingertips gingerly trace the etchings upon the smooth surface, which read: _"Nakamura, Anne C. / 1981-2006 / Beloved of our hearts, rest now in halcyon slumber."_

Musing wordlessly, he wonder if she would she indeed rest as tranquilly as they desired. The drifter hoped that would indeed by the case, and that if there was such a thing as a greater power lording over eternal souls she would find peace in Its eternal kingdom. The clone, when not declaring himself an atheist after he'd tired of debates in matters of faith, had always flirted with the belief in a God, predominantly in the context of Christianity, as that religion – ironically - had been what he had found himself surrounded with during his youth. He murmured as much to the stone before him, not feeling foolish at he thought he might in speaking to an inanimate object, even knowing Anne would have disagreed with his viewpoint that a block of granite could be representative of her being. However, he took some frail comfort from the idea that perhaps while his mate's body had died, her spiritual essence might still exist somewhere in the world…changed, perhaps, but still a part of the universe he dwelled within. Nonetheless, the solace he gained when stroking the headstone, when placing the bouquet upon it, was miniscule compared to his sorrow: as he stood, his task complete, he found his mind sinking back into uselessness now that it no longer had a duty needing acumen to perform. The grief he had kept locked within to retain clarity of thought now rose up, choking him of breath and making his chest ache as it tried not to burst with sorrow. The reasoning behind his attending the burial was twofold: this grave before him was symbolic of not only his Anne, but of the life lost to them both, and in viewing it he'd desired to honor his female's unspoken wish, as well as possibly find some form of closure. However, both lacked the elements necessary to help his heal from the trauma of being present as his loved one had slipped away….

Vaguely, echoing in his mind from when Anne had sung along with the singer in his ears, the last verse of the song came to him…:

"_...'Oh come ye back / My own true love / And stay a while with me / If I had a friend / All on this earth / You've been a friend to me'."_

…And she had been. She had been his true friend, and that was why his current wounds ran so deep. He had consented to allow her to pierce the barriers surrounding his heart, in retrospect a grave mistake he had not believed himself capable of creating. Yet what had his alternative been – aimlessness; perpetual loneliness; to never know the warmth of another being? Did he merit that for the uniqueness forced upon his psyche and person? Was the destiny he had sought merely just that he would be alone for however long he might live? Sickness gathered in his stomach at the notion: that this might be his reality, a truth which he had contemplated but had never wanted to face, no matter his blasé façade concerning the idea. If this was his actuality, he wondered if perhaps he should never have reached out to her - for surely it meant that he was not a creature who could be a lasting companion, especially not a devoted lover. Was her demise the universe's way of whispering that into his mind? If so he cursed the colorless sky whose blue tone was being leeched by the approaching dusk, for Anne's life was too high a price to pay for the revelation. Yet then he reminded himself that life was a chaotic whirl…he might have gleaned insight from her fate, but her fate had not been set just to make him learn a difficult lesson. To think otherwise was unpardonable arrogance.

Regardless, in the hours after he had departed from the cemetery, and travelled slowly through the darkened streets, his contemplations grew listless and ceased to circle as they had before. His ruminations would alter nothing; they were simply his way of prolonging his inevitable fall. The clone knew that as soon as he found his way back to the condominium and buried himself in the softness of Anne's and his bed, he would lose what part of his will he had left. Simply put, he had no means of moving forward – he was not suicidal, but he could foresee no future ahead of him, and so did not nurture the motivation to struggle onwards. The acts of movement, of feeding and drinking, of doing constructive things: they were meaningless trifles now. Sustaining a body when the soul merely wished to slumber, to not awake to a pointless existence whose days would repeat endlessly in persistent torture, was a ridiculous and thoughtless notion. He would not guzzle down poison, open arteries, or use a bullet to end his misery…he would pine, allow his form to mimic his spirit and waste into nothingness. Perhaps he might yet be reborn somehow if hope found its way within him, giving him a new path to pursue among the mist he was lost within.

Although it would take a matter of weeks before he was informed of the possibilities he might pursue, the seeds of a fresh start would be sown into his brain upon the night encompassing him currently. As he padded down the concrete trails of the metropolis, he weaved into the shopping district. Many of the stores had been closed for the hours of twilight, the metal meshes barring their windows and entryways from abuse and burglary; however, buildings owned by electronic and produce chains remained open, having enough employees to attend it the wares and customers all twenty-four hours of a day. Stepping through one of the manicured lawns, his fur and the hems of his cloak becoming saturated with drops of condensing dew, he avoided the high-reaching lampposts towering above the parking lot, the region bearing enough vehicles in the late hour to obscure his figure as he passed between them. With disinterest, he formed percentage charts in his mind of the car types, models, and color, and attempted not to wrinkle his nose at the dizzying smells of gasoline exhaust and spilled oil. The leaked iridescent pools looked sickly under the artificial lights, no longer churning liquid rainbows in their carbon-based fluid. Not until he took a closer look at the trickle flowing into one of the chemical puddles did he realize it was blood, not more fuel, that sullied the liquid.

It spoke much of his inattentiveness to his surroundings that he had not heard the sounds of pained gasps arising from the man huddled over his stomach a few parking spaces down. He clutched at a wound in his side while begging the stabber – who was determined to steal his money and expensive purchases - not to harm his young wife. She was leaning against a side-door of their car, with her husband's attacker regarding her with interested eyes. Mewtwo saw a reddened blade flash in the gloom, the tip of it sliding harmlessly down the woman's face. In the depths of his mind he recalled that a majority of the crimes that occurred in urban areas – at least apart from the degenerated neighborhoods of the poor – occurred in company parking lots. Rapes, muggings, car thefts, even murders occurred in a place supposedly safe due to silent alarms and security cameras. Yet the reality was that most of the cameras were faux, and those that were real were often left unwatched; such was the deadly sin of large businesses which valued profit and not its customers. Crimes like the one he now watched were more common than most citizens realized, and now for their ignorance this couple was paying the price. The drifter stood there; he watched as the bleeding one crumpled on the ground, struggling to stay awake to continue pleading for the sake of his mute partner…he watched as the attacker pressed the knife to her throat and with his other hand started to molest the female for personal delight…he watched as the edge sliced her skin as she tried to jerk away, the soft whimper escaping her mouth a cry for help….

In a previous time Mewtwo would not have cared about their fate. He would never have entertained the thought of intervening with an affair outside of his own doings…yet remembering how Anne had been murdered, and remembering the lists of injustices that had been done to her, he was forced into motion. His companion's image became superimposed onto the wife's, and so his telekinesis stirred into life in those moments where he ran on an instinct he did not understand at the time: to protect. For his fellow clones, he had been their alpha and they his pack; for Anne, she had been his prey and potential companion, and he her stalker and unlikely guardian. He had no attachment to this couple except in the sense that they were being victimized like his lost mate. But it was enough. He strode forward in long, purposeful steps, his motions soundless while the light glowing in his eyes gave his previously unseen presence away. The man reaching his fingers beneath the woman's clothes was rid of his knife before he realized his hand was empty, and his body thrown back by an invisible hand into the nearby van. The metal dented inwards with considerable force, and the attacker's head slammed into the scarcely yielding surface, knocking him unconscious.

Yet in his fury the clone went farther than that: Mewtwo lifted the pitiful human into the air fifty feet above their heads and let him fall. The impact would not kill him, but bones split as he hit the merciless asphalt surface. The pokemon heard them crack, and with unquenched fury, he tossed the fainted animal into a lamppost. His psychic grasp held the thief there, perfectly erect, and with care not to crush the unfortunate being to death he bent the metal pillar of the post until, screeching as it twisted into loops, it coiled several feet about him in a python's iron grip, and then the psychic straightened the remaining length upwards once more. The light, amusingly enough, still worked. He turned back casually to the shocked pedestrians, and narrowing his eyes sent a burst of pyrokinetic flames into the oozing wound of the man's side – the tissue sealed on contact and the blue flames extinguished promptly afterwards. The man would live, if in pain from his melted flesh, and the pokemon was certain the authorities would be on their way shortly. With a growl he found himself boring entirely of his wanderings. He merely wanted to return to his home, even if it was to an empty bed. As he charged his teleportation energies and began to step away, he heard the woman's soft voice as she redid the buttons of her blouse and jeans.

"Thank you…thank you for helping us!"

He said nothing…suddenly his actions struck him firm, and those grateful words resounded in his mind, raising a terrible question he had not considered before: why had no one helped his sweet Anne? Why had no one saved her…? She had not even been a block away from the main streets…why had no one heard her…why had no one rescued her…why, _why, WHY? _The indifference he had previously held was shattered with the desperate inquiry, which screamed in his mind, begging for an answer. He curled over himself before he disappeared, gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes shut as he held in a long, agonized howl. It was only later when he had stripped himself of his cloak and slipped into the embracing fabric of the bed that still smelled like his lover that he came to a heavy conclusion: most humans, unlike the pokemon they used to guard their pitiful lives, were entirely weak creatures. They would not risk their lives needlessly to intervene in a crime that did not include them or those they regarded as valuable. They were not strong enough to insure their own survival in the rescue attempts, and so would not step forward to protect those being wrongfully abused. Furthermore, they were held in a system of law that would not view their efforts as heroic unless the acts were clearly out of self-defense or in defense of treasured people. Otherwise, the would-be heroes would be prosecuted for daring to injure or kill a being not worthy of being called a fellow man or woman. After all, justice could not be taken into the hands of a single being, for a single being could not decide who would live or die, because he or she was not omniscient and could make mistakes. And when those mistakes resulted in the death of an innocent who had merely been in the wrong place at the wrong time…well, the defender would no longer be the vigilante he or she sought to be, the indiscriminant protector of good, but would become a villain in the eyes of the court. Oh yes, there were a few rare, moral souls who might risk everything in the defense of what is right, including those trained for such an occupation…but most chose the easy way out. Most ignored the atrocities around them so they could merely exist, unseen by the forces of shadow that at any time might find and destroy them…. And those who weren't controlled by cowardice and self-preservation were bound by rules and regulations, which ultimately failed as crime escalated its boundaries until it became the focus of the utterly depraved. The system was broken, because what made the good of humanity different from the evil also insured that the pure would never succeed in eliminating the corrupt.

Only a person willing to free his or her self from such boundaries could even begin to make a true difference, and perhaps change a city so needing to be renewed. Yes, that person would be hunted down like a rabid animal by both sides of the conflict, and that individual might be doomed to become the very monster he or she abhorred. Yet if the sacrifices of that individual could make a difference…if that person could make the capital safe enough that any person like Anne could come home without fear of an untimely, violent death each night…_would it not all be worth it? _Mewtwo fell into a deep, dreamless sleep with that thought in mind, never knowing just how much it would fester irrevocably within him….

* * *


	8. The Nephilim and Her Fable

_**

* * *

**_

Sunday, June 25th of 2006 / 12:25 p.m.:

Hunger ate at the cells of his mind, thirst burned unforgiving in his throat, and his bladder felt as if it would burst as any moment…yet Mewtwo ignored the needs, letting sleep overtake him for hours, his lowering metabolism giving him blissful lethargy that made him forget for a time the hollow cavity within his chest. He curled into fetal position, at times quivering and moaning in discomfort, as if unfurling would cause him to fly into pieces. Lying under the stifling blankets of the bed, a grimy mess from ignoring essential hygiene, he realized he was likely growing ill, but he did not change his behavior. The clone became a dying child in a dry womb, and did not truly stir until he heard the front door of the apartment unlock and ease open. In a moment of delusion Mewtwo's nearly cried out his mate's name, believing that time had slipped backwards and she was coming home from work. Yet reality settled in as soon as he heard the deep, masculine voices of Joseph and the man's father. The pokemon's head lolled back down into the pillows; he did not have the strength or willpower to storm out of the bedroom and roar at the men for daring to invade this sanctified place, this shrine to his late beloved which had not changed since her departure that fateful day in mid-June. He could not even gather the care to be annoyed when the brother's voice called out for him, or as the man riffled though the books and papers upon the abandoned table before the sofa, the vestiges of a project now decaying in pointlessness. His exact words muffled to the clone's ears, Joseph told his sire to take a seat, and his footsteps slowly approached the bedchamber the wanderer now resided in. The door slid open…Mewtwo felt roaming eyes peering into the dim, the glow of the sun outside kept at bay by the closed curtains of the balcony. There was a sigh, before Joseph said in a quiet voice, "…You look hung-over, Mewtwo."

The clone's baritone voice, usually smooth and full of depth, rasped out, _"As much as I enjoy a White Russian on occasion, I drink in moderation. I have not had any alcohol since New Year's Eve…."_

Joseph lifted an eyebrow at the withering creature. "So you look like shit for another reason? When was the last time you had a full meal…or even half a meal, for that matter?"

"_I find I have little appetite as of late."_

The doctor strode over and tore the covers from the bed, revealing the pokemon's body to the analysis of his pale eyes. His mouth thinned into a stern line. "I understand what you're doing, Mewtwo: many people, when they experience a devastating loss, no longer feel hunger…but starving yourself is only going to make you physically sick as well as emotionally depressed. I don't think – no, Anne would hate to see you like this. She did everything she could to make you happy and whole-."

"_A kindness you resent, I am sure…and as for what she would have wanted, we cannot know her desires in certainty now can we?"_ The wanderer growled, staring at the thread of gold filtering in through the curtains. It broke into his perfect darkness, piercing his shadowy haven like a burning razor across his exposed pelt.

There was a pause, before the man said crisply, "Don't act as if you are the only one who lost someone they loved…you don't have a monopoly on suffering just because you've been deprived of the only woman generous enough to let you crawl on top of her and-."

Mewtwo reached into his reservoirs of strength with a feral snarl and leapt, cutting the forming statement off as he grasped the doctor's pristine collar and slammed the man into the doors of the closet. The barriers buckled, and the two heard the old man start from his seat at the noise and race down the hall. The bedroom door glowed blue, flying shut and locking, yet that was all the consideration Mewtwo quartered to the elderly one. Focusing his ire on the brother, the clone snarled with bared teeth, _"Anne never took me into herself out of pity…she consented to my touch, and exchanged such affections in return…! How dare you speak about the matter as if she whored herself-."_

The pale gaze regarding him narrowed. "Oh, _shut up_!" Joseph spat, rolling his eyes, "You don't have the right to lament her - if you'd have gone with her to her doctor, she'd still be-!"

Mewtwo dropped the man and turned away with a growl. _"I _KNOW_ I am to blame! If I had been at her side she would still be here, alive and well! Do you think I do not regret my decision to let her go by herself every hour that passes? Yes, she would have been furious for such a decision...Anne was terribly set on her independence, and would have ranted at me for my 'hovering' over a mere virus...but her wrath is far preferable to her death!"_

Joseph's expression, as he listened to the ramble, shifted from the contortion of rage to perplexed disbelief. He stared at Mewtwo, his mouth somewhat agape…and then, after calling to his frantic father outside that everything was alright, he whispered in a hushed voice, "Jesus…you don't know?"

The pokemon glared at the man and hissed, _"Know what?"_ What detail of the wretched monstrosity had he missed…? He could think of no information Joseph could bear that he had not already discovered for himself!

Joseph approached him cautiously, and said slowly, as if to a small, temperamental, unpredictable child, "She…she wasn't _sick_, Mewtwo. We decided to keep the matter private, but Anne called me after she left her doctor's office. She told me I was going to be an uncle."

The clone stilled before beginning to shake. No…he did not want to hear what the man was saying…he did not want to comprehend what he suggested…!

"My sister was pregnant when she died, Mewtwo...and I'm certain her baby was also yours, since Anne was never someone who slept around. You, at least, would have been able to tell if she did – your sense of smell alone would have been keen enough for that."

A low moan escaped the pokemon as he shook his head, wanting to ward away the truth Joseph presented him with: but it was just that, an undeniable truth that dawned clarity over the mind. His Anne had been pregnant with a child…his child. That was why she had been so weary before her death, and had been sick in the mornings…that was why her cycle, the undulations of which he had memorized, had suddenly halted their progress. This was her motive in wanting so desperately to come home to him that she'd taken an unsafe shortcut instead of public transport, and why she had asked for his forgiveness as she died in his embrace. For in her womb she had cradled a growing infant, an impossible baby which they had not believed themselves capable of conceiving. An image arose in his mind of what might have been if she'd never encountered the men who had beat her: of her arrival home and her finding him on the couch, of her smiling happily and curling up to him as she told him her news. Disbelief would have been his first reaction, followed swiftly be shock…and then undoubtedly would come delight, a reflection of her own fierce joy. He could imagine caring for her through the pregnancy, of experiencing both the wretched pains and wondrous miracles of it. He could imagine stroking her swollen abdomen, of listening to the unborn within using both his ears and his sixth sense, of feeling the child stir and kick inside her. He could imagine the taunt nerves and anxiety as he stayed with her while she gave birth, and of the happiness afterwards as they beheld the infant they had made in their mutual affections.

Never once before in his life had Mewtwo formed such contemplations of being a father to one of his own flesh and blood…and while he was sure that he would have been baffled over how they could have defied the laws of nature to conceive, he was also certain he wanted more than ever what had been lost to him. His Anne had carried a child within her when her attackers had beaten her within an inch of death and then left her to die. She had been pregnant, but with her the new, fragile life she had been nurturing had died. He trembled, and felt the aching contractions of his stomach as his body, like his mind, rebelled against the wretched reality. Excusing himself hurriedly he rushed over to the bathroom door and stumbled inside, coming to his knees before the toilet and regurgitating a mixture of sour bile and acid into the porcelain bowl. After the nausea subsided he breathed a shaky "no," horrified at the thought that he had not only lost Anne but the infant he had sired within her as well. Herein lay a cruelty he wished he could have been sparred of learning….

Joseph, who followed him into the cool room, seemed to agree, and in a kinder voice devoid of his previous anger he murmured, "I'm sorry…I thought you knew, and that's why you were-."

Mewtwo looked up at the human with a dull, yet tormented expression. _"How…? How could she and I have…?"_

The doctor snorted inappropriately. "I'm going to assume, unless there's some manner of impregnation that I'm unaware of, that it happened in the usual manner: yours went into hers-."

"_You know that is not what I meant! Do not act as if I am infantile…!"_

Joseph sighed, turning his head away from the pokemon. "…Honestly, I don't know. It goes against everything I was taught in medical school, Mewtwo…."

He paused, and then spoke onwards. "Speaking of which…I saw what you were working on before her death. Your notes on the matter were quite elaborate – much of it went over my head, but from what I can theorize, your procedure, while certainly radical, would have worked."

Pale eyes met violet one. "Mewtwo, did…did Anne know you were trying to restore her sight?"

Mewtwo huddled his legs close to himself and said, _"No…she was unaware of what I was working on. It was meant to be a surprise gift for her."_

Looking away, the man fidgeted. "What you were suggesting to do…our top researchers aren't even close to making the kinds of breakthroughs you wrote down with such ease. We still struggle to clone full animals…the prospect of replicating a single set of organs as complex as those that dictate vision: the eyes, the cords of nerves, even the damaged brain cells that would have made it impossible for her to see even if she'd gotten a transplant…it's well beyond our capacity currently. We're much farther along in cybernetics than we are in those fields…but you were planning it out as if it were no more difficult that fixing a broken nose. The only thing you seemed stuck on what how to actually move forward with the surgery methods themselves…."

"_I had been planning to contact you for assistance in that area. While I am well-informed on the matters of biological sciences - physiology, organic chemistry, and genetics, due to my upbringing - matters beyond creation are not ones I can execute with such ease. Surgery is not my field of expertise."_

"…Do I want to know how a pokemon knows so much about these subjects?"

The psychic smiled wryly. _"Suffice to say I was raised in an environment where the scientists around me were more than willing to commit high crimes for the sake of furthering their knowledge. As these people were not barred with morality as you are, they naturally discovered information and created methods decades ahead of what is now debated by current medical superpowers. Their learning, in the end, became my own…it is the true jewel in my mind above the glimmering shards of other gestalts of study."_

"I see…."

The clone glanced up at the human again, noting his mixed revulsion and lust for knowledge, and asked,_ "Now why did you come here, Joseph? To make my misery worse than before with bringing up all I have lost? If that was your goal, I assure you, you have succeeded in your desire,"_ the clone said, and rose shakily from the tiles beneath him. His body wavered as he stepped forward, back into the room he had left vacant, hearing the doctor following behind him.

The brother, shaking his head, explained, "No; my father and I came in order to obey the will Anne left and inform you of what you've been bestowed by her."

The pokemon paused, turning his gaze onto the human again. _"…Her will?"_

"Yes," Joseph stated, and pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pants pocket, evidently a copy of the official documents. "Anne, unlike most young adults, made certain to create one early on in life and updated it every January with her consultant. She did this in case any accidents occurred…after all, she possessed quite a bit of property."

"_I see…so, what were her written wishes?"_

He young man glanced at the contents and paraphrased, "For her material possessions, a number of items are to be given as keepsakes to various members of her family and to her friends, though most of the furniture will remain in her condominium. Her business is to go to her partners, though a percentage of the profits are to be to be added to her family's savings account as well as donated to certain charities she listed. Her personal bank account is now yours, including access to select items placed in other storage facilities, their numbers, passwords, and locations of which are enclosed. She also deemed to give you this apartment if you chose to continue to reside here. "

Mewtwo lifted his head higher. _"…Is it legal for her to give so much to me, Joseph? I am not a man."_

The doctor shrugged. "Some people give their estates to their pets, so I don't think anyone saw this as much different. Yet anyhow, the things she enclosed to us are what we are here to gather. It will take a few hours, but-."

"_Take what you wish – as a pokemon I have little use for items unnecessary to life, but I ask that you leave me something of her: a picture, perhaps, or-."_

"We'll just take what she said we could…she had her reasons, and I won't infringe on those."

Mewtwo gave him a disinterested look, and then, curious, asked, _"What were the 'select items' she left me? Are they disclosed on that paper?"_

The brother nodded and handed the sheet over to the clone. As amethyst eyes swept through the contents, the doctor began to walk away…but Mewtwo's voice called out, his brow furrowing with his uncertainty. _"…She deemed to give me an ovum sample from a fertility clinic?"_

Joseph grunted, "Um, yes, she did…before she met you my sister wanted to have a child on her own. She was using various methods of immaculate conception, in vitro fertilization mainly, which required that some of her gametes be extracted from her ovaries. The methods failed each time the procedure was done, which led her to believe that there might be something wrong with her ability to reproduce. Of course, she eventually learned she was mistaken, but…she deemed to include the remaining egg-cells as your part of the inheritance. I'm assuming she thought you might find some use for them, and now that I know some of what you're capable of, I'm inclined to agree with her."

Then the man saw how a spark of fire had formed in the feline's eyes, and knew immediately that some forbidden idea had begun to be conceived in the intelligent mind behind them. He tried not to think about what the pokemon might be planning….

Mewtwo spoke after a few thoughtful moments._ "…Joseph Nakamura…would you be so kind as to obtain the ovum for me, along with a batch of stem cells, and bring them to me in a week's time?"_

The human blinked at him in inquiry. "…'Stem cells'…? Why would you need…?"

"_You can tell your colleagues that the cells are to be used in a treatment for some incurable brain malignancy: Sandhoff Disease, perhaps, as such therapy has proven effective against warding away an otherwise unavoidable death."_

Though hesitant, the human agreed to Mewtwo's requests, and within the next few hours made the necessary calls to obtain the biological material the clone desired. After the human men left with a few boxes of the items Anne had consented to them seizing, Mewtwo returned to the table in the living room, and amended his previous notes on the matter of single organ cloning to something altogether different, yet still related to his previous musings on experimentation. He would not simply be copying already provided genetic information as he had intended to before…he would be manipulating cells in an entirely different matter. As Joseph was certain to give him embryonic stem cells, which could turn into whatever type of tissues one sought - unlike adult stem cells which were merely progenitor - the creation of a specific organ would be simple enough once he had found a way to trigger the ideal path of development. He would undoubtedly need to use numerous growth hormones to develop the organ into maturity, as well as make alterations to its form and function to create precisely what he wished to make.

Perhaps the trickiest part would be to make it compatible with synthetic blood lacking antibodies and antigens, whose ABO and Rh traits could prove troublesome; as well as making the tissues soluble to the fluids, as external veins leading into the organ itself would only complicate matters. The liquid and tissue would have to alter once true blood traits were introduced – this attribute would make developing diseases through cellular immunity void, though until the transformation was made the whole endeavor would rest on luck. Since he essentially had to eliminate the immune system to avoid downright tissue rejection, there was a heavy risk of a completely failure if the biological materials became contaminated with foreign bacteria, parasitic infections, or even simple toxins. For the greatest amount of success, he needed to ensure that the organ and blood would not battle against what they were nourishing, for the product would surely fight itself enough to ensure that there would be losses in what would be a trial-and-error experiment. He would have to keep the environment utterly pure through the process, at least until the false tissues became compatible with the product's own systems, and there was more than mere nutrients, oxygen, and plasma in the anatomical cocktail. Yet Mewtwo had created and matured clones in a matter of seconds when his methods had been perfected…this, while more complex, would not be impossible for him to do.

Acquiring the materials necessary for the experiment wasn't simple, yet within a matter of days he had managed to purchase, bribe, and steal from enough medical and research facilities to procure the needed instruments. He first obtained six large cultivation tanks with filtration capabilities, as well as half a dozen isolated exterior chambers for the mixture of various substances that would provide nutrients to the growing tissues; along with wires to monitor health and development. He also bought a few hundred gallons of synthetic plasma, with red blood cell substitutes derived from Ditto blood; a cell incubator; an assortment of syringes, scalpels, Petri-dishes, and microscopes; a catheter, some hydrophobic glue, and several smooth fasteners; and a few other machines that in their entirety could: A.) Strip unnecessary fluids and cells from raw materials, B.) Freeze these materials for later use, and C.) Keep a stable quarantine for the gametes to avoid contamination. For good measure he installed high-intensity, shortwave ultraviolet lights within the studio room, where he set up his research facility after placing blackout sheets across the wide windows with duct tape to avoid invasive eyes into his doings. He cleaned the area with an array of antiseptics afterwards, including the use of various alcohols, aldehydes, oxidizing agents, and phenolics.

During that time, Mewtwo's behavior altered drastically: he ate large helpings of food and drank juice and water in surplus, scrubbed his body clean twice a day, as well as slept at least nine hours each night. He knew well the importance of both his mind and body being functional in the endeavor he was about to partake in, and so cared for himself well for such a purpose. At times he even deemed to leave the condominium for fresh air and exercise, knowing exposure and the exertions of his muscles would heighten his metabolism to where it had once been. He understood well that once the enterprise had begun little would be able to keep him from fully focusing upon it – his body was going to suffer as he tended to his project: it was too fragile to ignore for more than a few hours until he was certain stability was reached.

Finally Joseph arrived, carrying the package safe in a cold-storage box used for medical shipments. He did not stay long afterwards - according to the man he did not wish to know what illicit activities the clone was planning; though if anything came of it, he desired to be informed. Mewtwo agreed to this, and then led the male back to the elevator. Once he'd returned he carefully placed the gametes into his acquired freezer to prolong their hibernating states, and then began his experiments with the stem cells. Using both the research he'd obtained through media channels and discussions with several leading professors over the internet, he began to culture the various cells into their eventual forms. The triggers of growth direction, and keeping them from differentiating into other types of tissues, was the most difficult part of the process; he had to insure they developed into the correct organ, and it took several tries before he perfected the methods. Then, as the cells began to multiple into the specific tissues, he had to pry into their nucleuses and make alterations to what they would become. There could be no creation of sex cells, though the hormones for procreation had to remain intact even if the organ itself was barren. Also necessary was mutant, cord-like growths in certain points, with which he could attach the developing organs into the hooks he'd placed in the cultivation tanks. These would keep the tissues suspended in the synthetic fluids instead of allowing them to float to the top of the chambers where they would catch on the filters and pumps.

Three weeks passed in which the tissues developed before he removed the first six, fist-sized organs from their gelatin tubs, and weaved their lengthy crimson filaments through and around the fasteners within the tanks, one organ per tube. Closing the curved doors, he sealed the edges with a quick-drying, liquid-insoluble paste, and then filled the chambers with the readied fluids, which had previously stirred only in the storage tanks. Once the units were full, he heated the liquid to human body temperature, began the filters and nutrients feeds, and added growth hormone ever few hours. Once a few more days had passed, he was satisfied to see the fleshy filaments now wound about the hooks completely, keeping the organs firmly in place. At this rate, the tissues would reach maturity within a week. Having jotted down the exact procedures, he stored the remaining stem cells to repeat the process if necessary: he could not reuse the tissues if a failure occurred – it would merely put another specimen at risk, and while it would be a waste, it was an unavoidable one. If need be, he could procure or create more of the necessary plasma, but that was for another time if the first six attempts were unsuccessful.

Confident that the laboratory workings were stable, Mewtwo reluctantly turned away from the artificial wombs to obtain the final ingredients for experiment in which he was placing so much of his hope and resolve. This would both be an ambivalent ordeal for him, but he could evade the task no longer. Once the uteruses were prepared for the embryos he was intending to create, he would have to move forward quickly; the hormones keeping them in a nurturing state wouldn't hold for more than two he had desired to suspend them in that point, they would need to change to care for their intended products, so the option could not be pursed. With a sigh he gathered what he now required: a container for the sample and some warm, soapy water. If he could have, he would have merely stuck a needle deep inside himself to gain the material, but that was not something a single person dared try alone, and was foolish when there was a far quicker and easier way to manage the task. His intellectual mind found the concept disgusting and too animalistic for his tastes, but it was unavoidable. As he slid into bed, breathing in Anne's lingering fragrance, he wet his paws until they were slick and buried himself beneath the blankets and sheets, bundling them with his powers to encompass him like the limbs of a lover. His lips curled up over his teeth in a grimace. This was not precisely something he wished to do, to dirty himself in this matter without another being to become sullied with him. He did not wish to force himself to indulge in a physical bliss that he had previously only shared with his Anne. Yet he shoved his revulsion aside and placed thoughts of her in his mind instead: he could recall well how she felt against him, how she tasted and smelled, how she cried out as he moved within her…he could recall the sight of her when he had chosen to view the appealing features of her body, so warm and ready to accommodate him in an act that gave them both unbelievably fierce pleasure. As his paws slid down, feeling between his legs, he tried to imagine that it was her hands touching him, that the softness about him was her skin and hair…the fading odor of apples assisted the delusions, the wave-like shocks of physical enjoyment that accompanied the aroma making the erection he gained an involuntary development. As his breath came in sharp little pants and he moaned as he slowly ran a clutching paw over the hardened length, he glanced down for a mere moment, observing the instrument he had once buried into his lovely mate and with it brought them both to the heights of physical bliss. Its length was about seven inches, with a decent enough girth, and had the same pale flesh as the rest of his skin, if darkened now due to the blood pumping into it…and it seemed strange, suddenly, that he had never actually seen it before. Yet he supposed that was typical of the type of creature he was, run by his mind instead of his body….

With a growl he clenched his eyes shut, trying to recall how it had felt to thrust himself fully within his lovely female, as his paws grasped the firming length and pumped along it in an attempt to mimic the sensation of Anne's silken flesh. Pleasure evaporated thoughts that would break him from the building need, and raced through hot, hard flesh, deep up into his belly and spine…his body began to jerk, his hips thrusting forward as carnal ecstasy. Control was lost as the motions began to quicken, his pulse thundering in his ears…he thought of the one he'd lost, crying her name, pretending that the fabric around him, damp from sweat and saliva, was her person he writhed against. The gestalt of sensations built up in a tight knot within his center, until finally rapturous release was obtained. His body shuddered hard with ejaculation, liquid fire expelled into the bedclothes. The damnable act complete, Mewtwo sank into the mattress, panting, wincing at the pulsing in his member, which slowly withdrew back into his body. Out of the temporary high his mind surface sluggishly, and for a few moments he buried his face into the pillows, sickened. Yes, the act was natural of any being with a sexual appetite…but in the reverse order than the norm, he had known mating before personal pleasuring. That liaison between two people, a ritual for him indicative of complete trust and affection – for it was all or nothing for him – had been full of emotional wonder that a bout of masturbation could not hope to rival. His heart ached…he wanted Anne, not so much for this, but for the comfort she gave as she lay entangled in his arms, shivering with residual bliss and unequalled love. Even though he occupied himself with a task through which he hoped to gain a part of her back, he missed her terribly. He filled the hole in his chest with thoughts a new form of love he could devote himself to…but it was still there, gaping, with scars stretching from the wound.

With a low groan, he rose, poking his head through the blankets as he twisted free of them. He upturned the fabrics, finding the splotch of wetness against a sheet. The twilight filtering into the room illuminated it, showing it to be of a white color not different from that of other species, if more pearly and ample than other examples he could unfortunately name. He took the cup on the nightstand and scraped the deposited seed into its hold, placing the lid tightly over it. He would have to place the gametes into an aquatic environment before they dried through exposure to air. With weak legs he stood, noting that he would have to burn the sheets and wash the blankets soon, but for now, he had to attend to his other tasks. The clone returned to his facility, withdrawing the sample with a syringe and placing it into frozen storage. He would prepare it when he was ready – for now he changed the bedclothes, showered, and slept, regaining full energy for morning when he would take up his experiment again. As dawn broke, he stirred, stretched, ate breakfast, and after a treatment of mild peroxide to his fur, returned to the confines of the laboratory.

The clone took out the dozens of egg gametes first, searching through them meticulously after they had thawed. As he had expected, the extended time of freezing had made a vast majority of cells unviable, and some that could still be used had flaws that made them undesirable. In the end, he had a mere fourteen eggs that lacked genetic pitfalls and damages. The low number made him twitch with wariness, for he knew perhaps half of them would fail to be successfully fertilized or before reaching the blastocyst stage of development. Still, he would move forward; he placed the remaining cells into the cooler and took out his own donation. The first thing that would need to be done was strip the inactive cells and seminal fluid from the male gametes, as well as attempt to separate the healthier sperm from the sickly ones. The first task was simple enough; the second required the help of a computer scanner to process movements and find the defective cells, since there were hundreds, if not thousands of potentials. The hunt would not be very thorough, considering the vast numbers, but it would help eliminate the direst outcomes. Nature usually did this through having male gametes endure "long-distant swims" up into the fallopian tubes, but as this would be a direct fertilization, the "race" would be far shorter. Hence, the strongest "swimmer" might not necessarily be victorious….

Eventually both sets of opposing gametes were ready, and with careful deliberation the clone removed the first six female cells from their containers, depositing one in each Petri-dish, and then added the sperm to the containers. As he covered them and set them aside for the allotted time in the incubator, he leaned back with a pounding heart, considering what he had just done. Mewtwo knew his actions bordered on the unethical: he was trying to create a child, possibly multiple children, from what remained of their deceased mother. He did this to have something of her to hold onto that was animate in nature, unlike what so many other "widows" were forced to cling to for solace. Essentially, he saw this process as an attempt to re-create the child he had not had the chance to have with his mate (though the fetus would not be the same one which had stirred in Anne's womb). He wondered then: was he like his creator in this venture? No; he could not be. He was not trying to defy death by cloning the lost loved one – he had never once even contemplated the idea of trying to restore Anne from the dead. Not only would the legal and social ramifications be radical to the point of near insanity, but the created would not be his late lover anyhow. His soul, after all, was not like the Mew he had been derived from; likewise, in lacking her predecessor's life experiences, the cloned Anne would have been nothing like his mate. He might have her body again, but not her spirit, and her spirit was what he had found alluring. Her form had just been a very welcome benefit. Besides, this was not cloning, where a fetus grown to a certain size was placed in a tank of synthetic amniotic fluid - the color of amber – after being attached to sensors like a marionette to strings. This was a sanctioned method of reproduction, an act of creation far more natural that how he had been made! As well, he justified himself that Anne must have consciously know what he would have done with her gametes when she had decided to give them to him. Surely, this was her wish: to have him create a legacy between them, and in that legacy not be alone anymore.

Shaking his head, he focused the next eighteen hours on the cultivation chambers, making certain they and the artificial wombs were ready for the introduction of fertilized gametes. He rechecked the analysis feeds, added pinches of minerals and vitamins to the mixtures if they were even a hair from perfect. At points he jotted down his findings and progress into the notebooks at his desk, or slept curled in a chair beneath a light blanket. When the timer went off, he stretched and shook himself awake as he stepped over to the incubator, and carefully he pulled out each dish and set them beside the microscope. As he began to check each of the containers, his stomach twisted within him: out of the six eggs, only two had passed the first stages of mitotic cell division to become zygotes. He set the two multiplying cells back into the incubator, and then with a heavy heart turned his attention to the failures. He had been expecting this; after all, Anne and he had gone months without conceiving a child, though they'd used no protection between them (being clean of disease and unaware that a pregnancy could occur, they'd never seen a point to such measures). So late into the next day and night he studied the four dead cells, trying to discover what had gone wrong. As far as he could determine, one had not been successfully fertilized, and in the other three the chromosomes had not aligned properly. Certain random gene segments in the meiosis, crossover, and recombination stages had rejected one another.

Since Mewtwo could not control the process there was little he could do to prevent repetition of the event. Yet now he could conclude that circumstances had to be perfect for conception. Otherwise, the hybridization of his species and Anne's would not occur. He learned more intriguing information from dissecting the failures: apparently, he possessed a pair of chromosomes in his gametes whose sole purpose was to regulate the number of their fellows. If, when fertilization occurred, there were too few pairs to match with those of the female oocyte, these chromosomes multiplied with a range of varying traits, which otherwise decayed if the match was successful. However, if there were too many pairs, these chromosomes broke down into chemicals that targeted traits deemed unnecessary or incompatible, until the pair number matched the foreign species'. The sex cells, in short, would conform to the opposing gametes they were matched with. Obviously, this did not ensure success, but what it suggested intrigued the clone, even though he knew he would not pursue the subject. Shrugging it off as a curiosity, he occupied himself with another batch of six and helpful texts. Five days passed before the first two zygotes reached the desired blastocyst stage. He placed the first into the catheter, and with his psychic abilities teleported the tool into one of the ready tanks. He carefully moved it with telekinesis until the tip of the instrument eased deep into the artificial tunnel, passed the opening of the cervix, and then he injected the developing embryo into the false womb. After removing and cleaning the instrument, he did the same for the other success, and a few days later copied the process with the four survivors of the new batch. With all six of the artificial wombs containing an occupant, he could only place the last two viable eggs aside and wait for the results….

Yet over the course of the next month, Mewtwo began to despair. Within the first week, two of the six had failed to imbed in the uterine lining, and had been flushed out with crimson tissue when the organ's cycle had continued without them – they'd died before he could salvage them. The other four perished at different stages of development, and though he scrambled to discover how and why this had occurred, he only came to vague conclusions that genetic defects - common among hybrids - were the cause. Panic, naturally, began to eat away at him: he only had two more chances left. The percentage of failure was shocking high, and for days after the occurrences he feared moving forward. If he did so and failed that would be the end of this endeavor. He would have lost all hope of regaining something of Anne…! He comforted himself with the thought of doing nothing, or of doing more research before proceeding…but he knew the remaining gametes wouldn't be viable for much longer. If he didn't take the risk now and face what fate had in store, he would lose whatever chance he had of obtaining his and Anne's child. So, fearful but determined, he cleaned and readied his supplies again and used the last two egg cells. They both managed to reach the blastocyst stage, and resolved he placed them into the organs made to house them. Time passed, slowly, agonizingly, until the depths of autumn settled over Viridian City. The two unborn were in the final stages of embryo growth, yet Mewtwo, believing the worst would soon occur, became paler and emaciated in his worry. He suffered mild panic attacks as he mused on complete failure…but the pair continued to form, easing his anxiousness. After a time his hope began to overcome his misgivings; he began to believe that he might have healthy twins within his arms to cherish. An image of a boy and a girl, perhaps one of his form and the other of a human, blossomed in his dreams; it would be wondrous, he thought, a delight beyond compare. Yet as the fantasy began to imbed itself in his mind, one of the unborn died. He scanned the womb repeatedly, searching for the lost fetus, but it had disappeared entirely. Only later, when he had dissected the organ and searched it manually, did he find the tiny, dead corpse.

Autopsying it, he concluded it had perished from anaphylactic shock – a thing he blamed himself over, for recently he had begun to vary the base substances in the synthetic fluids around the wombs. His hopes were to provide a larger range of supplements, as well as hints of flavors to help the little ones grow accustomed to the outside world. Yet one of the ingredients had caused an allergic reaction in the child and killed it. The notion confused him; he had purposefully avoided the types of foods that were adverse to developing children: fish, alfalfa, soft cheeses, soy, natural oils and herbs, garlic, chocolate, onions, macadamia nuts, roots and fungi produce, uncooked meats and eggs, milk, and other substances typical of non-fresh foods or soft drinks. What had he done wrong…? Eventually he understood that the child had been dying regardless; it hadn't been getting enough folic acid, which caused defects in neural development. Had it not been a reaction to its diet, spina bifida would have cloaked the unborn in death. Still, weeks would pass before Mewtwo ceased to berate himself for the death of the fetus…and regardless, it left him more terrified of the future than before. Now he had only one chance left: the little being who remained growing in the final womb. Every day he checked ten times to insure that it was still there, at one point having thought the creature lost when the computer had taken seven tries to identify the child. Each attempt reduced the likelihood of survival by twenty percent, and being forced to confront negative odds - along with an inability to sense the life within the organ - had almost set the clone into severe heart palpitations. Yet the unborn, after four months, remained alive, if frail like its siblings had been.

Eventually, the father-to-be felt the tension in his shoulders and back ease; the infant was becoming stronger in body and mind each day. It showed no signs of defects according to the tests he had run, though he could not be certain of their absence without the extensive ultrasounds he avoided. Yes, Mewtwo was doing all he could to ensure the unborn came to term, but he did not wish to prematurely see his creation. Instead he'd decided to view his growing child after it had been born…because if it was a monstrous abomination, as he secretly feared might be the case, he would have to destroy it. This way he could prolong the realization of that grim possibility, and make the act harder to execute; because it would be alive and pure outside the womb, and its extermination unable to be justified like an abortion. Indeed, the thought if infanticide made him shudder. He had come so far…the thought of turning back now out of uncertainty…! He could not bring himself to risk everything by looking at the being curled in its amniotic fluid! Hence, he chose to reassure himself with second-hand monitor feeds. They would be enough for him….

And so months passed in which Mewtwo scarcely left the laboratory, only doing so for food, to sell the machines and instruments he no longer required, and to dispose of the unused biological materials. Soon there was just the single cultivation tank left in the facility, a desk cluttered with notebooks detailing his procedures and findings, a metal table cleared of but a few sealed tools, and a comfortable chair from which Mewtwo read to his growing child. He noted that its brainwaves grew active as he did this, as if it were enjoying the sound of his voice, and so made it habitual to do so a few hours each day. Music also stimulated its neural development…any sound, really, would probably trigger the effect, but unlike the scientists who had created him, he did not run audio tapes in the background with pokemon vocal recordings. For him the tapes had been played in an attempt to teach him to speak the forgotten Mew language. Foolish of the geneticists to do, of course, since his altered body was incapable of making the chirps of a kitten, nor could samples of words instill the whole of a dialect upon him. Yet he was not planning to grow his own creation to adulthood, so the attempt at ingraining a language onto it was purposeless. Mewtwo wanted an innocent newborn, a being he could raise as his daughter or son until she or he reached full maturity. That, along with the plans of how he would make their lives work, and the garden on the roof he was cultivating into a play area, was what he mused upon as the artificial womb became swollen with the unborn, whose limbs explored the flesh noticeably from his perspective. His eyes followed its kicks as the naked muscle jutted out through the fetus's movements, who eagerly explored the internal world cradling it. Such sights made him smile as he touched the warm glass of the cultivation tank, and as he mused on the future before them. Changes to his lifestyle would undoubtedly need to be made: currently he was using what currency Anne had given him to pay the condominium's bills, yet those funds would be diminished eventually. He would have to acquire a paying job, and to do so he'd have to go through numerous official steps and channels, including forging paperwork that would make him into an actual citizen, rather than a phantom vagabond. He was already drawing them up for both himself and the child, albeit slowly in the case of the infant, as it would require far more fabrication to explain its existence to the world. Furthermore, not only was there the official daytime life he would need to concern himself with, but also the other purpose he had come to affirm in his mind. He would be walking a fine line for years, possibly even over a decade, with the plans he was creating…but the vision that lay within his mind was incorruptible.

Of course, he would need the aid of an old friend to pull off the deception, but he was certain she would happily oblige if she didn't downright forsake him for his intentions….

Eventually fall passed into the bitter chill of winter, which melted into spring. It was the second of May, during moonrise, when his computers confirmed that the infant's mass and development were ideal for birth. For the past few weeks he had felt his own restlessness grow to the point of agitation, and also knew from the unborn's active brainwaves that it wished to come into the world after nine long months of waiting. Already the clone had scrubbed down the room with disinfectant and gathered the items necessary to make the process go smoothly and care for the child in its initial hours. He set clean towels aside and grabbed the scalpel after draining the tank of the false, now AB-positive blood, quickly using a knife to crack through the ancient glue and ease open the curved door of glass. The filled womb hung heavily with the weight inside, the cords of flesh grown to the tank hooks strained with the sudden abuse of gravity. Though the chamber dripped crimson droplets onto him, Mewtwo leaned inwards and grasped the warm, slippery, moving bundle with care, and clutching it to him he cut through the cords with the scalpel, the blade becoming coated with red fluid as he severed the ties. He brought the artificial womb to the table fleetly, mindful that the child would suffocate if he did not free it soon. He laid it out before him frontal side up, and hurriedly began to slice into the tissue fibers, which oozed crimson as he worked. Cutting the child out was the only option he had: inducing a normal birth was foolhardy at best, for even if he could trigger uterine contractions, what then? The baby could breathe liquid presently, but not pure blood, and if he drained the aqueous environment beforehand the muscle would rip apart without the support of other abdominal muscles. No, a makeshift caesarean section would have to suffice. That the organ shifted in his grasp made the cutting more difficult, but soon enough he punctured through the last bit of tender flesh.

Setting the scalpel aside he pulled the slit open, his eyes probing within as his heart leapt into his throat…the caul was unbroken, and within the transparent amniotic sac he could see a small, pale creature stirring, its aura glowing a soft lilac that was rife with surprise and fear. He pulled the bundle from the muscle and broke through the skin fleetly. The liquid rushed out, the little baby sputtered and - as Mewtwo lifted it over his shoulder and patted its back - it coughed up the fluid in its lungs and inhaled a breath of oxygen. It began to wail loudly after that, but the clone found he could not be irked by the sound. It meant the child's lung capacity was deep and that everything was alright with the infant. Cradling it against his fur and murmuring soothing sounds to it, he summoned a clean towel to the table and set the little one on its back upon it. He cut the umbilical cord from it first before wiping the fluid from its soft, pudgy flesh, placing a bandage to its navel. Then he regarded it silently, more than a little awed by the child, the accomplishment of months of meticulous effort. It – no, she - having quieted now, was as pale as her mother had been, with faint curls of downy hair upon her scalp. She blinked up at him with light blue eyes he knew would pale or darken in the coming days, and she flailed out her arms towards him, proving her ability to manipulate her tiny body as she saw fit. He checked her over slowly, finding no malformations in her warm, moist body, which, he noted in relief, appeared fully human in shape. Life would be easier for her in this form, for she would never be hunted as a child's plaything or shunned for alien traits if she appeared a crossbreed as her genetics dictated. He remembered, vaguely, that children between pokemon of two different races usually took after the mother. It was no different in this case: frankly, he could see very little of himself in her! Yet he did not mind this, for it made his heart warm to see the reflection of his mate in his daughter. He smiled, truly smiled, for the first time in almost a year at the thought. He had a daughter…Anne's and his child was a little female. Somehow, he was certain Anne would have loved that. His fingertips graced the small face he peered into gently, and with a sigh he bound her round bottom in a diaper and wrapped her up in a few clean towels. Refusing to let her go as he sat down in the nearby chair, he used his telekinesis to clean the laboratory and disengage the machinery; their task was complete now. He had the child he had worked so hard to gain - she rested now in his arms, occasionally gurgling and shifting within her bundle, perfect in all ways to him. His gaze grew watery as he watched her sleep…she was beautiful. Anne would have cherished her dearly….

When midnight struck, the visitor he had been calling for during the past two months appeared in his home, and with her ageless blue eyes gazed upon the newborn her companion held. The pink pokemon had observed from afar the changes in Mewtwo's lifestyle in the past couple of years, from his growing affections for the woman who would become his mate to his desperate drive to regain a part of her after her death. The Legendary had suspected as much might happen when she had heard news that the clone had returned to his homeland, and was glad to see that the injuries he had sustained from his losses were healing as joy replaced sorrow, and obsession faded into paternal devotion. She even smiled at the young one he held, and stroked her face with the tip of her long tail. She could not blame her "brother" for what he had done, as immoral as it might be, nor could she hate the child for what she was, though she had reason enough to. Mew merely sighed, gazing on the two with soft eyes, and murmured, _"So…this child was what you were so intent on forming. What will you name her, Mewtwo?"_

The younger psychic, clearly adoring the newborn, said in a hushed voice, _"During the course of her development, I thought of many names for her, whether she was female or male. If she had been a son, I would have named her 'Kouki.' However, as she is female, I will name her 'Mitsuki Emi Nakamura,' in honor of her mother."_

Mew understood; Japanese names rarely contained a middle name unless the descent of the child was mixed, and so the male was likely following a trend by giving her one. "Emi" meant "favor" or "blessing," which was fitting enough for the child, although the ancient found the first name far more intriguing than the second one. It was an alteration of the traditional spelling "Mizuki," which meant "full-" or "beautiful moon", befitting now as the lunar body was round and luminescent on this spring night. Gazing at the female and the father, Mew nodded her approval: "Mitsuki" would be appropriate, not only because it was a variation from the norm but because of Mewtwo's own symbols and beliefs. With a light chirp of amusement, she murmured, _"Any specific reason for naming her that, brother?"_

The replica cuddled closer to the infant, inhaling her sweet scent before replying. _"…Her mother's and my best moments - and our worst one - were coincidently always on the night of the full moon. This is in acknowledgment of that fact. Besides, it suits the little one; she deceptively hides all the pains that went into her creation while she shines, like the moon who aches with scars while glowing brightly." _

Seeing his "sister's" nod of agreement, the clone glanced up from his child and murmured, _"Mew…do you disapprove of what I have done?"_

The Legendary stilled; as a creature of constant motion, this betrayed the serious thought behind her playful smile. Sighing, the pink pokemon said, _"…How can I? You are now a father, a type of being I always hoped you would become. Regardless of the unconventional means used to create your daughter, it is no worse than the past choices of my own kind. So no, I cannot judge what you've done as wrong. Although I had hoped you'd choose a pokemon to have a child with, I always knew that option was unlikely. Considering you empathically imprinted on the minds of humans as a child, it's only natural that you picked a human as a partner. You gleaned your knowledge, language, and behavior from that race; even your preferences are colored with the desires of the geneticists who formed you. Your soul, as a result, resembles theirs more than any pokemon…so this comes as little surprise to me. Though, I admit, your choice in mate was different than I had imagined. Yet she too was an outcast, making her kindred to you, so I suppose a mutual attraction was inevitable."_

Mewtwo's eyes narrowed at her words. _"…You seem very omniscient presently,"_ he commented with a faint snarl. _"Have you been spying upon my doings, Mew?"_

The original tilted her head at him, her tail twisting behind her in a flurry. _"No, but I pay attention. As of such, I could feel the shift in your emotions as easily as you breathe…I have more than enough experience for that, little brother."_

Reluctantly he accepted her answer. It was of little consequence what she gleaned from his being, although he was irked that she had taken so long to arrive if her senses were so acute concerning him. The one in his arms kept his anger at bay, and mulling over what Mew had said, he lifted his muzzle and inquired, _"Your species, Mew…what crimes did they commit that you compare to my doings? Furthermore, what traits have I inherited from your kind that has allowed this child in my arms to exist?"_

Mew smiled despite herself at how intuitive he was; at least his keen "third eye" would be useful as he raised Mitsuki. The ancient created a small, flexible sphere of pink energy, which she curled upon as if it were a pillow. _"My kind,"_ she began, _"has a legend that intertwines closely with a human tale of origin - I think it would explain this matter best. Would you like to hear it, little brother? I believe it would be fitting for the child's first bedtime story."_

The replica leaned back, cradling little Mitsuki against his chest, and nodded. _"Very well…tell me your fable, Mew."_

The immortal grinned faintly, closed her azure eyes, and began the story in a low voice, _"'In the beginning, out of the gestalt of chaos the child of the universe was born, and with the dark materials around It, the Being constructed the Earth and the Heavens, giving one the seeds of potential and the other everlasting light. Pleased with Its work, It spent many days perfecting the new reality, imbuing it with the flowing elements of Fire and Water, until it gleamed of an iridescent glow in the blackness. However, eventually It yearned for another share in Its delights, and so created a Paradise on the shifting world by chipping a shard of the emeralds of Its body and burying the piece into the dust. Soon a lush garden blossomed forth from the wastelands, with all forms of green life that dazzled their beholder. The greatest among these initial quiet lives were two mighty Trees, whose roots wrapped about the God's crystal and took their unique properties from it. Yet as wonderful as the Paradise was, it did not sooth the loneliness in the Deity. So, to populate the garden the Creator formed three types of lesser beings in which to find solace. The firstborns were children much like Itself, imbued with supernatural abilities: these were the seraphs, the shape-shifting Mew, which It created with Its tears. To contrast these metaphysical beings, It created next the simple beasts from Its blood, given uncountable gifts among their varied kinds: of fur, feathers, and scales; of claws, talons, and fangs; of great strength, agility, and defense."_

_"Ultimately, though, these powerful children were unblessed compared to the final two beings the deity formed. This pair was the strangest of the residents of the garden, having no other power but for the creativity of their minds, whose ingenuity was destined to set them apart. Their Maker, who breathed Its breath into them, gave the innocents but one law to obey: they must not eat from the Trees of Knowledge and of Life, least they die. For many years, the residents of Paradise coexisted in utter bliss, yet a change occurred that broke the peace. One of the Mew - named the Bringer of Life - became discontent as he realized the God favored Its final creations above the others. His fury only grew as the Maker bestowed upon the couple yet another gift: free will. The child became dark with rage; for his kind had dutifully served the God's every whim, and still did not earn their Parent's affections. As he succumbed to jealousy, the Dark Mew sought to rid Paradise of the humans to regain the Deity's adoration. Yet though it was within his power, he could not murder the two: for one of the Creator's edicts was not to kill. Then an idea came into his mind; he appealed to the couple he despised to first gain their trust. To do so was simple, for the humans loved to hear him sing hymns and delighted in his ability to change his shape. So when he assured them they would not die if they bit into one of the untouchable Fruits, and that the flesh would give them the secrets God had withheld from them, the couple obeyed his will and ate the Fruit of Knowledge. When doing so the Tree withered and died, and the humans became aware of Good and Evil. When God discovered their disobedience upon viewing the withered Tree, It exiled the couple from Paradise. The two silently accepted their punishment, not speaking out against the friend who had tempted them, and so went forth into the deserts. Eventually the God softened Its heart to these special children despite what they had done, and gave them companions in which to multiply their numbers. They did so, and did so quickly, and God turned Its gaze fully away from the garden to advise the outcasts on how to prosper in the wastelands of the world.'"_

"'_Meanwhile, the Dark Mew looked on with growing bewilderment and envy, lamenting to his fellows the unfairness of their servitude when the humans were free to do as they pleased. Soon he gathered others to his way of thought, and while the God remained attentive elsewhere, he persuaded them that to become greater than Man and never need bow to Him, they must first mimic Man with defiance. Therefore, they consumed the Fruit of the other Tree, the Fruit of Life. Like the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life withered after they had consumed its bounty, but from it the Mew received longevity second only to their Creator. Yet this act alone was not enough for the Dark Mew: he saw the rise of sin among humanity, the vice far different than what might stir within the minds of rabid animals, and so sought to copy this choice of theirs as well. Eventually, he and the others began to use their shifted forms in an unprecedented and exotic manner – they courted the beasts of Paradise and laid with them, discovering the delights of the flesh that so captivated Man. In the coming months as they experimented and savored the powers they had been bestowed, another latent gift of the Fruit of Life came into their awareness: the beasts bore the half-breed children of the male Mew, and the female Mew grew swollen with the spawn that had been sired within them. They learned that the Fruit had given them unlimited fertility among the living, and so in the coming year hybrids came to populate the garden with their parents. The young ones possessed forms similar to their animal sire or dame, but the metaphysical skills of the Mew. The Dark Mew, looking upon these little beings, felt a sudden fear, for they were not of God's will as the true Mew purebreds were. What would happen to these half-seraphs when the God glanced back into Paradise and found them there? As he and the other unlikely parents felt the God begin to approach, they attempted to hide the unusual children from the Deity. For a time they succeeded, and all was well. Yet just as the Creator had begun to turn away again, a Kitsune tumbled out before It from its mother's den, revealing the affairs of the seraphs and the beasts."_

_"Enraged upon finding the mixed-bloods, the God did not give the Bringer of Light time to explain: in Its desire to wipe clean the earth from the monstrous children, the Deity created a Great Storm which flooded the seas above the mountaintops, and barred the Mew from entering the Heavens for shelter. As the winds and waters raged, humans, animals, and the Mew drowned. Eventually, only a handful of souls were left who had not succumbed to the now crimson seas, and as the Great Storm calmed these beings wept. They were the children God had tried to destroy, and now had lost uncountable friends and family to Its wrath. As they cried the final gift of the Fruit of Life, yet carried in their impure blood, was revealed: the water of their tears mixed in the oceans, reviving the lives taken by the flood. The God, seeing this, knew It could not eradicate them now that they had resurrected the innocents caught in the maelstrom. So as the Mew rose from the dead, It turned punishment upon them instead. It declared that for their acts they would not only be exiled into the world, but cursed as well: It placed chains upon the creation of the mongrels - any female who bore a hybrid would perish in the act of childbirth, and any male who sired one would become feral in their altered forms. The God had handed them an ultimatum: breed pure, or face extinction. Yet even as the few remaining thousands of Mew attempted to bar themselves from their previous mistakes, some fell into temptation, and the mongrel race continued to spread and the Mew race dwindle. Eventually, the pure families turned inward - but this too was doomed to lead to misery. As generations passed, the unsullied children were born with deficiencies. Weak traits within a lineage built up within their blood, until it left them disabled or incapable of reproducing. The old perished in the passage of time, and the new could no longer be brought into the world. Many of the seraphs fell into despair: for though they could live centuries, their race would someday vanish completely. Some committed suicide in their sorrow; others went mad and escaped to animal form; more grew sick and withered away into dust. Unlike the humans and beasts who prospered around them, the Mew were destined to fade into eternity. Those that remained through the millennia merely contented themselves to guard over the impure children who had forgotten who they were, until each light fell into blackness once more, finding forgiveness and peace.'" _

As she fell silent, Mewtwo form was still, until after a few lengthy moments his eyes narrowed. _"…This is how you explain matters? By saying I can breed with a human because of a piece of fruit?"_

Mew snorted at his conclusion. _"It's just a story, Mewtwo, but it outlines a kernel of truth: my race was the first species of pokemon – no, we are _not_ cats as most believe, due to our shape and behavior…we were a different Class entirely. Call the existence of felines convergent evolution if you will, or an example of animal mimicry that spun out of control; either way, the Mew was a unique group of shape-shifters. Since they could change form, and possessed a mutation in their genes that allowed breeding outside of their own species, they essentially introduced alien traits into other beings that resulted in the evolution of the lesser pokemon races-."_

"_And what of the humans with unnatural abilities?"_ He hissed. _"Do the tastes of your kind also explain these traits-?"_

The Legendary almost snarled, and certainly did glare at him as she spat, _"Of course not! The descendants of the ancient Mew would not touch mankind! The purebreds learned well the dangers of such behavior, and refused to promote repetition of the acts. Had such sins been committed, the clans would have been able to determine who possessed the guilt of it immediately, and then the individual would have been exiled. Furthermore, in the gestalt of our race's memory there is no incident of that specific atrocity; and as knowledge is transferred between the Mew through social contact and genetic echoes, I am certain the belief is valid. So no, Mewtwo, our blood has not spilled into human veins: they are merely evolving metaphysical skills on their own…although I daresay you just gave them a rather forceful push with introducing Mitsuki into the equation."_

She smirked at the irritated look he gave her. _"Oh come on, Mewtwo, I am right about this and you know it. Now at least you understand my initial wariness. After all, your blood might be the purest among my kind since the ancients were thriving: you are not soiled with animal genes, nor have been poisoned through incest. With your purity, you might have taken steps to rejuvenate the race, but…you have made your choices. And even if you had decided differently, it would likely have been too little too late, as I cannot remember the last time I saw another of my kind who has not completed degenerated, or, unlike me, could still bear kits."_

"_Degenerated?"_

Her expression became wry. _"Suffice to say one group of the inbred Mew yet manages to survive, though they have lost their shapes completely and all remembrance of what they once were. They are the only members among the Mew's descendants who still bear our ability to change…and they are nearly impossible to kill. What can I say…? It's the way of life: either a species will adapt or they will meet extinction. Nothing stays the same forever, not even God…."_

The two psychic pokemon grew quiet after that, their conversation dying on the morbid note. After a few minutes, Mewtwo mixed a bottle of baby formula for the now waking, fussing girl, placing a rubber teat on the top of the container of warm, synthetic milk, and pressed it to her lips. Mitsuki's pink mouth clamped over it and she began to suckle greedily, eager to fill her empty stomach. Meanwhile, Mew busied herself with paging through the documents sprawled upon the clone's desk: there were birth and citizenship certificates, medical files, a graduate's diploma and college transcripts, a pending will, various legal papers and ownership records, a list of former occupations, visas, and other files denoting existence. The last items she came upon were surrogacy records, and unlike the others, which were mostly filled out with fanciful scrawl, these ones were blank. With brimming suspicion, she glanced up, finding her "little brother" watching her from his seat. The space between them was a listless grey without a speck of dust floating through the air, smelled of the sharp odor of peroxide, and was silent but for the nursing newborn that the male held so tenderly.

Abruptly the Legendary understood why Mewtwo had been so desperate to summon her: if he and the child were to find a way to live, they would need her as a collaborator in the plans the clone was formulating. Undoubtedly, Mew would do all she could for the sake of her makeshift family; she was sentimental in that way. With a surrendering sigh, the ancient took up the pen laying out conspicuously on the paperwork and began to write along the lines, adding her own lies to complete the false reality her "sibling" sought to weave. Once she was done she floated over to the pair, musing that at the very least she would not be bored in the coming years, and that she could put her many talents – derived from centuries of scholarly missions along with adventurous play – to good use. As long as she had a hand in the upbringing of the child, who carried in her veins the legacy of the Mew race, she would not abandon the two now. Thinking on the matter fully, she suppressed a snort at how very typical this was of the other wanderer: it was only when he wanted something that he sought someone, as he had with Anne, and as he now did with her. Perhaps she had known that much when she had arrived, and had been prepared to make sacrifices because of her chaste love for the shadow being, for anyone as forlorn as she was. So, softly stroking a paw through the silky curls of Mitsuki's hair, the ancient one murmured, _"So, what else have you called me here for, brother?"_

The father nuzzled the infant's face and then murmured, _"I need your help, Mew…." _Such words were difficult for him to utter, but the Legendary nodded encouragingly, knowing that whatever he requested of her she would provide him. Long seconds passed as the male gathered the willpower to murmur the necessity realized in his mind, fighting it even though he knew it was unavoidable. For Mitsuki's sake, for the sake of the Nakamura family, for the sake of nameless people who he was intending to emerge from the night to provide salvation, he would have to step along this path. His pride revolted against the concept, his thoughts laughed wryly at the irony, while his soul growled that it must be done…his decision had already been made before his daughter was half-formed, and so Mewtwo lifted his face in the murk, meeting the blue eyes of the one who had seen centuries of creation, ruin, and rebirth; of peace and war; and the rise and fall of so many would had fought their destiny, embraced their destiny, or had made their own in the ultimate expression of triumph….

The drifter, having now found a purpose, spoke the words to establish it and set himself along his fated course:

"…_I need you to teach me how to transform into a human."_

* * *


	9. Tsukuyomi Walks

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* * *

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Monday, September 6th of 2012 / 12:32 p.m.:

_Detective Theo Watanabe turned to give his partner a playful look as he dared her to knock on Satan's door. The hand he waved to invite her forward was a light beige, calloused from hours spent at the local shooting range, with a hint of the dark brown, messy hair piled atop his head across the back of it. His wooden irises, with all the swirls of polished maple, were alight with amusement as he watched her roll her own clever, lime-colored eyes. With deliberation that mocked his false timidity, she reached her own hand forward – smooth and the color of peace skin – and knocked her knuckles against the surface in several hard raps, before placing her fist back into a pocket and regarding him smugly. He merely smirked and shifted the manila folder more comfortably under his arm, and listened for the sounds of footsteps in the apartment beyond. Within seconds they heard the racing beat of small feet, heard the lock click open, and as the door swung wide they rested their eyes upon the daughter of the condominium's owner. Mitsuki Nakamura was dressed in blue overalls and a white sweater, and her face fell momentarily in disappointment as she saw two adults standing there and not her friends, but she smiled quickly enough and welcomed them, called to her single parent over her shoulder that Mr. Watanabe and Ms. Sato had arrived, and went into the kitchen dutifully as her father asked her to get out the supplies for tea for the guests. The adults, meanwhile, removed their shoes and stepped into the greeting room, their gazes causal as they peered over the interior of the home and tried not to allow their envy to show. It was an impressive space; that much had remained unchanged whenever they'd visited, and sometimes it made them more than a little miffed at their meager salaries. Though considering the circumstances surrounding the current ownership of the place, they supposed they should be grateful._

_A melodic, amiable voice called out from the office, "I will be with you in a moment, detectives. There are some things I need to gather before Mitsuki's companions arrive with their chaperone, so please, make yourselves comfortable."_

_As if doing so was particularly hard. The two knelt at the table in silence, watching the five-year-old dance as she waited for the water to boil, evidently excited to be off with her friends soon, until a tall form drifted down the hall towards them in slow, smooth strides. The adult was a lithe man, pale of flesh and long in limbs, his snowy lavender, shaggy hair hugging his scalp and bristling across his chin. He wore lilac clothes to bring out the stark purple color of his keen, cat-like eyes, which gleamed with an inhuman intelligence that seemed ageless to those who met his gaze. Theo, his partner Lily knew, admired the male for his grace and sophisticated speech, and for the mysterious aura that emanated from his enigmatic being…but to Lily, the fellow was nothing more than a vampire lying in wait, playing with its food before bursting forth from the darkness to feed upon its prey. Even the warm look he gave his child did not keep at bay the shiver of unease assaulting her as she regarded him, nor as he went into the kitchen and told Mitsuki that he would finish the tea and slid 3000 yen into her hands. She grinned and thanked his profusely, embraced him about his thighs, and then leapt away as she heard a series of light knocks on the door. When she opened it, the curious faces of the neighbors' children peered in, along with that of Mrs. Hibiya, their mother, when she asked if the little girl was ready to go to the festival downtown. The father merely nodded, encouraging the child to enjoy herself, and after the kids had dashed to the elevator and the front door snicked shut, he poured the ready tea and glanced up as Theo called, "3000 yen? That was generous of you, Mr. Nakamura."_

_The man smiled as the familiar ritual began. "Again, Detective Watanabe, I do believe my adopted family would be offended if they heard you addressing me by that name. I was not even married to their daughter when she passed away, and the only reason I can be included in their group is thanks to Mitsuki. It is not me they find delight in, after all…so please, call me Ayumu."_

"_Ayumu is far too casual," Lily commented dryly, but let it slide as always, and took the cup of tea she was handed. The father placed the other full cup before Theo and poured his own, placing the kettle upon the table slowly. Afterwards, he gave them the usual files they had requested and allowed them to search through the papers for what they would never find. As he sipped his drink, the woman went on officially, "Last night there was another homicide: this time the target was the renowned businessman Ikuto Sagisu, suspected of running a prostitution ring and trafficking young girls overseas for pedophiles to get their rocks off with. He might have been scum, but his company has demanded the murderer be caught…and since it was obviously Tsukuyomi – as you can tell from the over-the-top carnage in the crime scene photos – we are interviewing the usual suspects, starting with you, since you're at the top of the damned list."_

_Ayumu's lips twitched upwards as he regarded her in quiet amusement. "You are just as delightful as ever, Ms. Sato – but on what evidence do you believe me to be this vigilante?"_

_The detective's fingers drummed across the surface of the table in agitation. "Nothing concrete, but you have to admit, you haven't had much good fortune when it comes to encountering criminals in the past, have you?"_

_Ayumu's expression became solemn; in past interviews with these two agents of justice, many of the truths and fabrications of his history had been revealed to them. A necessity of course, to give his choices in his life credibility, for if one was going to lie about something as elaborate as life, one would have to "lie big," and provide just enough truth to escape the detection of polygraphy. Inevitably, he had to acknowledge that the false series of events gave him more than a little motive to be the vigilante dubbed Tsukuyomi by the police, the namesake derived from the Japanese god of the moon, and for the fact that the non-fictional entity only wandered out during the night, as well as made its most important executions by the light of the full moon. First, there had been the events he had described of his childhood: of watching his immediate family die around him, and of the being integrated into the most infamous gang of the city for his psychic abilities - Team Rocket. According to what he had told the man and woman, from there he had been placed in one of the lesser fractions, each of what were named after a legendary pokemon, and then designated a number: in this case, the soldier group had been called "Mew," and his number had been "Two"; hence the identity of "Mewtwo," which he had gone by even after deserting from the gang wars. That was why the Nakamura family had known him as such, and why he was entitled with the term in official documents from before their daughter's death, and not his original identity that he had reclaimed. Then after those adolescent years, he had disclosed that he had toyed with being a pokemon trainer. Ultimately, though, the pursuit was not of his tastes, so he released his captured team after a year. From there he had wandered as a vagabond, taking odd jobs to keep his stomach fed, until he was twenty-six years and chose to return to his hometown, thinking the choice safe after a decade had passed. In the capital he had met Anne Nakamura late one night in the local park, and after he had escorted her home she'd invited him to stay with her, for they'd had much in common in the likeness that their lives had been damaged through encounters with the same gang. _

_From there he'd recounted mostly truth, describing how they had grown fond of one another before having their lives together cut short when Anne had turned up in an alleyway, beaten within an inch of her life, and within a few hours succumbed to her injuries in a hospital bed. Skipping the part where he had been thrown into a murderous rage, he had said he had fallen into a deep depression, which had only eased after Anne's brother had informed him of the biological samples Anne had left him. Reality, at that point, began to diverge from verity: he'd explained that believing it to be Anne's will, he'd contacted one of his living cousins (removed several times over) whom he had visited during his travels, a woman named Michi Maboroshi. She was the daughter of a missionary, a man who had visited the tribes of South America and had married a native. The term "Michi," he had informed them, was not the Japanese name for "path," but the word "cat" in Quechua (a namesake given to Michi because she had not wailed after her birth, but mewled), which was one of the indigenous languages of Peru. It was in that exquisite country where she was raised, although she now spent most of her adult life in her second home in Guyana. At any rate, Michi was more than happy to come overseas to live for a time in Kanto, for she had travelled the nations of her own continent extensively and thought a change desirable. She had also been thrilled with the idea of getting to know one of her relatives from her father's side of her family, and it had helped that there were numerous electronic toys for her to puzzle over in the new nation – not that Michi was unintelligent, but she chose to live in a simple manner. After a few months in her new home she'd agreed to act as a surrogate to the child Ayumu wished to create from Anne's gametes. They had gone to a private practice for the procedure, and nine months later Mitsuki had been born. _

_Of course, from there Ayumu had to officially regain citizenship status and acquire documents for Mitsuki and Michi (the latter so she could freely commute between her homeland and Kanto). This move had gained the attention to the police, who were searching for a man with reasons to hunt down and execute criminals, a man who would eventually become known as "Tsukuyomi." And Ayumu, in their minds, had an abundance of motive: first there were the battles he had been forced to fight as a child, and hence his understanding of how to eradicate a gang. Second was what had happened to Anne, for within hours of her death the men determined the suspects of the assault were found shredded and crushed (to make light of the brutality of their executions), along with dozens of their fellow members in the same Team Rocket faction. On a related note to that potential grudge, was that in the past few years – other than a few random incidences - the same organization that contained such scum had been getting its fringes torn off. Now those suspected of being its elite executives were in hiding or had turned themselves in, for so far the vigilante had not attacked the imprisoned. Third was the fact that, in light of the newest murder, there was an evident desire to protect young girls (many being of Mitsuki's physical type). Fourth was that Ayumu was a self-confessed powerful psychic, whose powers could easily commit the horrendous murders ongoing in the corrupt capital, and that his build nearly matched Tsukuyomi's from the glimpses the video recordings had caught before shorting out. Fifth was his utter lack of social life, though this could be explained by Ayumu working at home to raise his daughter directly (but Lily stubbornly chose to ignore that tidbit of information). _

_However, all this "evidence" was based on wild theories and coincidences in timing. Concrete facts, unfortunately, always eluded the investigators of the Tsukuyomi Case. Perhaps the biggest inconsistency with what the detectives tried to pin on the man was that - although the memory of the witnesses was always fuzzy and hence completely useless to them, a trend of repressed traumatic experiences that made the force members wish to rip their hair out – Tsukuyomi might not actually be human at all. In fact, as reports piled on their desks, it seemed increasingly likely that the vigilante was a pokemon instead. Ayumu, aware of this fact and more, placed much of his defense upon this point…yet Theo and Lily were not satisfied. Out of all their suspects, none seemed less human than Ayumu Nakamura, despite his cultured persona and cunning mind. The smirk he sometimes wore only made his strangeness more evident to them...and it didn't help prove his innocence when Ayumu said he agreed with the purge of evil elements Tsukuyomi was instigating. He said he was even grateful for the entity for destroying Anne's murderers and making the city safer for his daughter to grow within, and that he would even thank the being if he could! _

_The only reason he supposedly _didn't_ follow along the same path was the child herself, as he would never be so foolhardy as to put her in danger. If he was Tsukuyomi, he'd declared, and it was discovered who his daughter was, Mitsuki would be targeted for abduction, used as a bargaining chip, and then doubtlessly killed as a lesson not to cross kingpins. Furthermore, what would happen to the girl if he were to die in his crusade? Certainly, Michi and Joseph would raise Mitsuki, but they were not her parents - they were her guardians, and wasn't it horrible enough that she had already lost her mother? It would be too cruel to deprive her of her father as well, would it not? He had gone on to say the biggest problem with vigilantism, besides endangering your loved ones, was an inability for the hunter to determine who was truly worthy of punishment. If a mistake was made, and an innocent or a person capable of reforming was killed, it would not be a righteous death penalty: it was murder, and so the vigilante would become a villain, not a hero. _

_Such were the reasons for and against the possibility that Ayumu Nakamura was Tsukuyomi. However, making one essential leap of true evidence would move them beyond mere speculation; for if they could tie Ayumu to the pokemon demon officials were beginning to believe Tsukuyomi was, then they could apprehend their suspect, as law enforcement was demanding the leading detectives to do once their proof was no longer circumstantial. Regardless of the fact that the vigilante was having more luck cleaning the streets of criminals than the police department before him, he was a wanted entity…._

_At any rate, as Lily sipped the rest of her tea and listened to her partner asking the usual banal questions (since she'd started growling her usual accusations at Ayumu within the first two minutes, forcing Theo to step in), she viewed the files that their researchers had sworn were authentic. Her men had even cross-referenced them by contacting the names and telephone numbers the papers had listed, and had found electronic copies in the government databases. To her, this suggested they should add charges of extensive forgery and hacking onto Ayumu's list of criminal offenses, though how he'd managed to make the persons themselves swear under oath that everything they contained was valid was beyond her. The family, of course, could be explained due to Mitsuki, but the strangers…? Was it memory manipulation? For a psychic, that was possible, but it was a risky endeavor, because one misstep could toss the victim into an asylum for senseless, incoherent blabbering. That was the damned part about dealing with a powerful meta-human: the proof of a crime was rarely material and hence couldn't be held up in court, which was why the case was floundering. There was just no way of knowing what had occurred without another psychic to translate the leftover energies into the equivalents of fingerprints. As most psychics were frauds or weren't powerful enough to be of any help, and Sabrina of Saffron was refusing to lend a hand in persecuting the male who was destroying the gang that once occupied her city, they were out of luck on that point. No one else was within Kanto jurisdiction to seek official aid from, nor did anyone in her department particularly trust outsiders, not even from Jhoto. Decades of living in a city where all levels of its infrastructure were infiltrated by the crooks made the innate suspicion inevitable. Sighing in soundless aggravation, Lily looked over the copy of Anne Nakamura's will again and commented with boredom, "You know, with everything this woman was leaving you, someone might think you made a deal with some old gang buddies to get rid of her, and then killed them later so they couldn't talk."_

_An eerie silence followed her muttering, and when she looked up she nearly dropped her cup in surprise: Ayumu Nakamura's face was contorted with fury, his fierce eyes boring into her with utter rage at her thoughtless words. She could see his body was shaking, and she raised her eyebrow at her partner, who was giving her a wary look for incurring the anger of a man they had previously believed incapable of the emotion. He could be cold and indifferent, yes, and even creepily heartless, but this was more reaction than he'd provided in the past dozen times they'd come to see him. Finally she had managed to get under his shell, had found a hot iron prod him into tripping up…and she hadn't even done it intentionally. Still, his low, slow snarl as he spoke disconcerted her, as if blades were skating over her skin…. "I assure you, I had no knowledge of what Anne had deemed to provide me in her will, woman. More importantly, I would never have done anything to harm her. For you to suggest that I had a part in her murder…do not insult her or myself in such a way! A large part of me died when she did…I did not even contemplate continuing to live until-."_

_Lily interrupted him to say, "Oh sure, I'm not saying your grief afterwards couldn't have been real, but that doesn't mean you were incapable of the act. It happens sometimes, that people kill someone they love for money or other benefits. Besides, wasn't she pregnant when she died? Maybe you didn't want to be a father, so you-."_

"_Is Mitsuki not proof enough that I wanted the child I was denied when Anne was murdered-?" Ayumu growled, his gemstone eyes flashing pale blue with fury._

_Ms. Sato shrugged casually, unworried about his apparent rage. "You could have changed your mind, or better yet, had the girl conceived and born for your cover. I've come across worse motives for bringing a child into the world. Besides, if you cared so much about Anne, why didn't you go out and find her when she didn't come home after her appointment? Why did a rare pokemon bring her to the hospital and stay with her until after she died, and not you? Where were you when she passed away, Ayumu? Home? That was rather careless of you, considering how much you supposedly loved her."_

_Ayumu stood, his eyes narrowing at the mention of his pokemon persona: this had never been brought up before. Had the alterations he had placed in the doctor's memory failed? Had the man been forced to undergo hypnotic therapy, or was this wild bit of information fabricated just to bait him? He growled in response to her fishing. "Firstly, Mitsuki was made for entirely tender reasons, not to provide me a sort of shield. Secondly, I did attempt to find Anne when she was late coming home, and eventually I traced her aura to the hospital – by which point she had died. Thirdly, I have no knowledge of how she was brought there, or of the creature that stayed with her until she had perished. Perhaps it was an abandoned pet who found her and tried to take care of her, or comfort her when it became clear she was not going to survive…or maybe it was a younger Tsukuyomi, who failed to guard her as he now tries to with others. That, it seems, would make a certain amount of sense - it could have even known Anne from an earlier time. Whatever the case, their bond is not something I know anything about, whether it be a meeting of chance or some lingering thread of fate."_

_Theo and Lily both silently applauded him; his words seemed foolproof, if rehearsed with their poeticism. After a pleased look at the verbal flourish, Theo spoke up, commenting, "Well, I suppose that makes sense. Do you have any idea what might have happened to this pokemon, Ayumu?"_

_The other male released the tension in his muscles as he shook his head slowly. "No, I am afraid not. It probably ran off, tried to hunt down the culprits, and was killed in the process: strays usually meet that type of end – they are shot if they do not rot of disease."_

_Theo sighed, took a swig of his drink, and said, "Well, there is one thing I find curious, Ayumu."_

"_And what might that be?" The man asked, retaking his seat and tilting his head quizzically, appearing unconcerned that Theo had taken up the role of interrogator, though the superior officer did not usually speak the more prying questions. He played the good cop, frankly, while Lily preferred being his opposite whenever she could, getting a rise out of being the badass girl. In those few seconds, the detective finished his cool tea, poured himself another glass, stirred in honey, and commented, "…Besides the fact the people only began to see you some months after Anne died, not before, and that people from the other buildings reported that she had a pokemon living with her that you say you don't recall, though you were intimate with her, I have to ask…do you have a cat, Ayumu?"_

_The father blinked at the detective, initially thrown by the inquiry. Yet then his amethyst eyes widened minimally as he realized the implications of what the man had said - had Theo found a way to hang him? Presently the officer was suggesting that either Ayumu was the pokemon, or that he was harboring it, and those notions hit far too close to the mark for his tastes. Gritting his teeth, Ayumu answered the question in careful monotone. "I do not have a pet, Mr. Watanabe, or I assure you my daughter would be fussing over it. However, I have considered purchasing one for such a reason – Mitsuki is rather fond of felines."_

"_Is that so?" Theo asked lightly, and raised an eyebrow. "Now, I know you and your child have very pale hair, Ayumu, but it's not nearly as short and fine as some of what's in your carpet," he commented, holding up a white strand before them. "The last time we visited I managed to pluck up few of these and had them tested in our forensics lab. The hairs definitely belong to a pokemon, though there wasn't a known species that matched the sample. We have no records in our biological database that can identify what shed the hairs, and none of our experts can tell us what-."_

_The detective stopped speaking when the recording device before him began to smoke with grey tendrils. With an amused expression, Theo picked up the small black machine, tossing it between his hands to avoid being burned until it cooled. Flipping open the cartridge, he found the inner mechanics and tape melted into a dark, stinking sludge. He tsked at the sight and the revolving smell it perfumed the air with. With mock sadness, he lamented, "Oh, Ayumu, do you have any idea how much these things cost? How am I supposed to explain that I wrecked another one of these in your house? Really, you should get a cat and say it pees everywhere and spare me the trouble…that, or I'm billing you again."_

"I apologize. My temper at your suggestions made my control fluctuate - I shall try to regulate myself better next time," _Mewtwo said casually, as if he had broken nothing more expensive than an easily replaced plate._

"_Uh-huh, sure," Theo drawled, and tossed the device to the scowling Lily. "Seriously though, buy a cat. You're going to be put down if anyone besides Lily and I figure out what you are – it's our job to take the insane approaches to a case, and nobody really believes us because of it, but if we can decipher this much from the available information the other investigators can too. I know you're doing this for Mitsuki's sake, considering what she is, but you need to be more careful. At the very least, don't leave a shred of your bloodied cloak at the crime scene. Luckily for you, Lily smuggled it into a nearby fire."_

_Mewtwo seemed amused at the latter information. He turned to the woman and gave her a teasing smirk._ "My, my…I was rather under the impression that you were torn with allowing me to continue my endeavor."

_The redhead curled her rosy lips at him and explained. "I don't approve, but you haven't given us another option. First you threaten to fuck with our memories if we ever tried to tell anyone or wouldn't play along, and then there's the fact that it would screw with Mitsuki if you were busted. Since I rather like the child, I'm hesitant to toss her precious papa to the wolves. Besides…figuring out the homicides of civilians versus pretending to figure out the homicides of scumbags…? Yeah, no comparison there – I will happily deal with the deaths of scumbags, thank you very much."_

"I see," _Mewtwo replied. His eyes flickered over them both before he said,_ "Now if I may ask, how soon will you be on your way? You both appear to be dressed for hiking."

_The humans glanced at each other: Theo Watanabe wore a black nylon vest over a pair of sturdy, tan jeans and a pine-green sweater, while Lily Sato wore blue jeans and a woolen cobalt sweatshirt. Though still early in autumn, the chill was considerable in the Mt. Moon Range, where they were spending the next week. Their camping packs were piled in the backseat of the car they'd rented for their forced vacation. After the Tsukuyomi Case had escalated and the body count numbered in the dozens, their superiors had decided to give the force officers a brief leave every three months for mental health purposes. After the first few workers had succumbed to the stress from the frenzied media and the rush of corpses, and were admitted to mental health wards, the higher-ups had decided this was the only way to prevent future breakdowns. That the case was going nowhere justified the move to those who protested it. Hence, the partners were effectively leaving the capital to recharge their batteries in the wilderness. For Theo, raised in the suburbs of Cerulean City, it would be a taste of home; for Lily, a city-bred Viridian, it was a dunking into the hell of nature. Since they would be hunting, she supposed there were some perks, so long as the other detective was willing to gut anything unlucky enough to get hit by their bullets…. After a moment, Theo replied to Mewtwo's question. "We were planning to head out at two so we could crash in Pewter tonight, and then in the morning drive up north. Why do you ask?"_

"I have a personal matter to attend to, which I would like to complete before Mitsuki returns from the festival. However, if you would prefer to linger longer…."

_Theo shook his head, gathering the contents of the folder they had brought and standing. He would not want to interrupt whatever plans the creature had; such would defeat the purpose of defending the entity. "No, that's fine. We wouldn't want to overextend our stay," he said, and glanced at his partner with a smile. "Are you ready to hit the road, Lily?"_

_She gave him a scorching glare and snarled, "As long as I'm driving."_

_Her partner, knowing the dangers of having her behind the wheel, nonetheless nodded his consent to sooth her ire. He had to pray they'd make it to an inn before she steered them into a fatal accident. Wary now and thinking that he might never return to Viridian, he said farewell to the pokemon-in-disguise and the two quitted the apartment. As they walked into the summoned elevator, and listened to it hum as it descended, Lily's demeanor shifted. She asked in a quiet voice, "…Do you think we're doing the right thing, letting his continue his campaign?"_

_Theo looked directly forward, not meeting her eyes as he spoke in a low, serious tone devoid of his previous playfulness, "Yes, I do; because he's right. Viridian City has spoiled to its core, Lily, and the judicial system that should keep it in order is broken by misuse. If we want a chance to heal the people and rebuild this capital, someone has to have the willpower to clean the rot away. Since Ayumu is not a man bound by our rusted laws, he can continue his work until we can fully stand back upon our own feet. Until then, it is our job to keep his pursuers off his tail and out of his path as he forges the way in which we must follow."_

_Lily lifted her chin somewhat as she contemplated the concept and its potential to go awry. "…And what if the god falls, Theo? What will we do then?"_

_Her partner stepped forward as the compartment stopped and the doors rolled open, the thudding of his boots muffled by the carpet. "If that happens, we shoot him in the back. That is why he allows us to know what he is – we're his safeguard." _

_With that he and his companion departed from the building, boarded their vehicle, and began their extensive drive into the north…._

_Far above them in the condominium they'd just left, the creature known as Mewtwo to his family, Ayumu Nakamura to the public, and Tsukuyomi to the ones who lived in awe and fear of his capabilities, watched their car drive into the Routes, before turning his eyes away and walking back into his office. Placing his wallet into his pocket, he glanced around at the space briefly: the walls were covered in tacks and newspaper clippings, online articles, photographs and names, and a map of Viridian City. The desk pushed against the wall held the computer (the screen containing a shifting polyhedron that altered its colors like a kaleidoscope as it bounced against the monitor's sides), a few notebooks and pens, along with a sealed bottle of iced coffee that, had he truly been a feline, would have killed him. Fortunately, he could use the drink as a ward for sleep, fueling his natural insomnia, though he yet preferred the pleasures of tea. Teleporting the beverage into the refrigerator, he pushed the uncomfortable wooden stool under the desk and locked the door behind him as he stepped out of the workplace. Having already read and commented upon the reports of his Philosophy Majors – who attended the online branch of the university in which he was a member of staff – within the previous days, and having worked upon several financial accounts after waking, Mewtwo now had the remainder of his day free. As he left the apartment complex, passing through the festival grounds as he wandered down the streets, he searched for his daughter among the citizens with no avail. She and the others seemed to be exploring shops now, not attempting to win the games outside. Continuing onwards, trusting Mrs. Hibiya to care for his little one, he arrived at a familiar flower shop, and paid for his order when the owner turned and smiled upon seeing his arrival. Thanking her as she handed him the bouquet of forget-me-nots, he walked on, eventually reaching the outskirts of town and climbing the steps to the cemetery. _

_Few people wandered among the graves this day, as many were instead spending their time enjoying the celebration below rather than dwelling on sorrowful visitations to the dead. Yet to Mewtwo this was one of the dates in his life designated for a couple hours of solemn musing. Hence, he had come to Anne's grave, the sole guest to her resting place upon this day, and set the blue flowers upon her gravestone. Tilting his head upwards, he saw only a few light clouds drifting across the sky, along with colored leaves of fire and desert sand tones, with a few pink ones in the fray of the breeze. Casting his eyes downwards, he smiled even as he felt a dull ache throb through his chest…his grief no longer sought to tear him apart, but the pain was still there, if muted until the moments when a memory came to him, so strong and potent that it made him gasp and fight for breath. Yet time and Mitsuki was healing him, if slowly…though he doubted the remorse over what could have been would ever fade. He spoke softly then, saying,_ "It has been a few months, Anne…I apologize for that. I can honestly say that I have been busy, but it hardly seems an appropriate excuse, considering that my main occupation is within the night. Still, I am sorry for not coming sooner."

_Running his palm over the stone, he brushed away the gathered leaves, and went on, _"Your family, to my understanding, is doing well, as are your friends, though I daresay Mitsuki would have more news about the events in their lives than I, as they all prefer conversing with her than me. Not that I blame them…I understand…but it is an unfortunate fact. As for Mitsuki herself…she is beginning to grow far more adventurous with her young companions, and though she respects my wishes, I can tell her will strengthens further each hour. Like you, she will be an independence spirit, as well as remarkably lovely: as the months pass, I can see her shaping into your appearance. Sometimes I am forced to wonder how much of me truly makes her who she is. Certainly, she is even more…bookish…than you were, but that is a small trait. I suppose I will simply have to wait to view the woman she will mature into, and then gauge which of us she resembles more. I doubt I will be displeased either way."

_His fond smile became slightly sad as he fell silent for a few minutes, listening to the calls of migrating birds and the trees whispering about the cemetery. He could hear in the distance the snapping of firecrackers and the hiss of sparklers, as well as smell frying cakes and sugared taro. The air tasted of cooking oil and smoke, and felt refreshingly cool, instead of muggy with common smog, as it filtered through the cemetery gates and flowed among the grave markers. Tomorrow and the following afternoon he would enjoy the celebration with Mitsuki, having given this day to his daughter to share with her fellow children. He was looking forward to venturing into the sun and activities of the festival grounds, but first…first there was this. His amethyst gaze focused upon the headstone as he murmured,_ "…Anne…I am uncertain whether you would care for the being I have become. While I do not see you condoning the actions of the ones I punish, I believe you would find my transformation into a monster far harder to bear, even though you always knew it was within my potential. Yet this crusade I have undertaken…it is not about revenge for how we were wronged: I have long since lost that motive. I do not do this for myself Anne, nor you, nor even the innocents who I save…I fight for our daughter's sake. I do this so she can grow without the threat of being injured and defiled by those who would hold only contempt for life. I do this so I will never have to worry that she will not come home one day, when she chooses to go where my senses cannot follow her. I will not see her innocence destroyed…I will not lose her as I did with Amber and with you. I will keep her safe. That is all I can take upon myself: just protecting one person precious to me, not the world – just our daughter."

_If he delivered more people than that, it would merely be an additional blessing. Because if he had to choose between Mitsuki and the world, he would let the world crumble in anarchy and destruction, for Mitsuki was his light…she was the one who kept him from becoming lost in the demon he had made. She kept him coming home, kept him living, until one day he could discard Tsukuyomi for a normal life with his child. Perhaps this was selfish, but Mewtwo had never intended to become a hero – he had merely wished to eliminate the great evils that thrived in this capital. Not the petty ones, which could be handled by the true officers of the law, but the kings and queens of sin and corruption, who spoiled the city around them with their miasmic doings. Those were who he truly hunted…for once they were gone, perhaps there was a chance that for a short while Mitsuki could live a peaceful life and find her perfect happiness, without the risk that it would be cut short as her mother's had been. That was all he wanted: to make a period of calm, and maybe through it Viridian City could heal its festering wounds and become a place of wonder once more. Until then, he would be Tsukuyomi, appearing on moonlit nights to force justice into the shadows; he would be the creature of eventual ghost stories as he wandered through the dark heavens to the dawn…._

_Before murmuring farewell to Anne once more, he whispered,_ "I miss you, beloved, regardless of how you might think of me…and even if I now speak only to a smoothed stone, what I felt for you remains the same,"_ he said, and as he turned away went on,_"…And for our sake, I hope you were wrong about an afterlife. I want to believe that someday Mitsuki and I might find you again, even if it is in a mere echo of life."

_He drifted away, and within the next few hours arrived home to await his daughter. Around seven in the evening she returned to the apartment, said goodbye to her exhausted friends and their mother, and spied him making dinner in the kitchen. She smiled as she smelled the stir-fry with sweet-and-sour sauce, taking off her small shoes and going over to the mantel as she greeted him and he welcomed her back. There was no hearth for a fire; the architectural feature was merely an elevated shelf where incense, pictures, ceramic statuettes, or other bits of art could be placed. In the center of the flat length was a single photograph in a picture-frame, showing the smiling face of the young woman Mitsuki knew to be her mother. Though the female's face was scarred, the little girl thought her beautiful and always felt comforted whenever she looked upon Anne Nakamura. The woman's image seemed to emanate a sense of warmth and love with the benevolent grin she wore as she laughed at something the photographer had said or done. Mitsuki's small, pale fingers touched the picture briefly as she greeted her mother with a happy chirp, and she replaced the incense sticks in the two trays, one on either side of the frame, and lit them with a spark of Pyrokinesis. The sweet, smoky odor filled the area, and Mitsuki also placed in front of the photograph a few flowers she'd picked, hoping Anne would like them. She felt like her mother would, because her father had always spoke of her kindness and her appreciation of gifts, but as she had never met the woman before she couldn't know for sure. The little girl wanted to meet Anne terribly, but her papa had said the woman had wandered far away from the city, and it would take them a lifetime to reach her if they tried to follow her. He had said that his mate would have wanted Mitsuki to enjoy her childhood and school years - which she would be starting next April before being offered the choice of becoming a trainer (which she'd already decided against) or continuing on to secondary school - and then afterwards make the most of her adult life. _

_So as much as Mitsuki had wanted to go after her mother, she had agreed with her papa…and seeing how happy that had made him, she knew she'd stick to that plan. She smiled at her mother one last time before washing up for dinner and sitting as the table as Mewtwo served them both. He had shifted back into his normal form, which Mitsuki liked better, and from there they began to discuss their days. In an excited rush, the little girl told her father about each of the games she had played, about getting a serving of tako yaki to share with her friends, and about exploring the all of the shops and booths. The group had also watched some of the parade dancers and the drama groups perform with their pokemon on the streets, and told him how at one point Mrs. Hibiya had had a bucket of confetti dumped on her when she was passing under a window. She described the decorations and the music, along with gossip she had overheard, though on this latter subject she scarcely understood much of what she repeated, and couldn't pry the meanings from her father when he began to smirk in amusement. At some point he told her briefly about Lily and Theo's intended camping trip, and their suggestions that Mitsuki and he purchase a cat – an actual feline, mind, not a pokemon equivalent – to which Mitsuki happily agreed. Mewtwo commented that if she was willing to care for it and made certain it was female, they would go look at kittens in a shelter sometime soon. The only detail he impressed to the girl was essential was that the feline have mostly white fur. The girl - too excited about the prospect of getting a pet - agreed fervently and never asked why that was necessary._

_After they finished eating and washing the dishes, the two sat on the couch and made plans for the next couple of days. Mewtwo assured his daughter that yes, they would have sushi for one of the lunches (the girl absolutely loved fish rolls – that much she had inherited from her father), and yes, he would play whatever games she suggested he try. He hoped she would never realize just how much he was wrapped around her little finger; he would be doomed if she understood her power over him. They watched television for a short time after that, skipping past the news channels still airing updates on the Tsukuyomi sightings, instead viewing a few children's anime shows that Mewtwo knew Mitsuki liked, during which he grinned faintly as he caught the little slips of adult humor that escaped his child's understanding. The bright, vivid colors flashed upon the screen as a mock pokemon battle took place, reminding him vaguely of the thrills some humans and their teams took out of the competitions. Once the credits rolled, the traditional reading hours commenced. In these the two would read their own books separately, or Mewtwo would read to Mitsuki (or, on occasion, vice versa). This time, he read a few chapters from the classic __Frankenstein__, appreciating the beauty of its graceful phrases and use of vocabulary, as well as indulged momentarily in the irony of loving his creation rather than hating it, as the scientist who had made an abomination had feared his monster. _

_While Mitsuki only understood the story in the lightest of contexts, that it was about a charismatic fellow who followed the threads of alchemy to create new life, and that the resulting being was destined to wreck tragedy and woe for its maker, she seemed to enjoy it nonetheless, and understood that it bore more meaning to her father than she could fully comprehend. As she began to drift off, Mewtwo mused that one day he would have much to tell her…of his true history, of his connection and life spent with her mother, and of her own conception. Currently, she believed that Anne had carried her, and after giving birth, had needed to leave for reasons unknown. Mewtwo did not have the heart to try to explain Anne's death to her, or of how the child the woman had carried before her death had not been Mitsuki at all. Yet someday he would tell her the truth, and hope she would forgive him for his deceit. After all, no matter how mature and intelligent she might be now, there was no possible way she could understand how she had been created, and while he trusted her to stay silent about his dual identity, would she be able to keep the manner of her birth concealed? He did not wish to take the risk, not yet, and so reassured himself that someday she would know what he hid from her presently. For better or for worse she would know…and at the very least, she would comprehend that she had been created through an act driven by the need to love and be loved. It was more than he had possessed at his conception…._

_As he placed the book aside, beginning to gather the girl up in his arms, she struggled and stirred fully awake, murmuring, "Wait, papa…I got you something from the festival…."_

_Mewtwo looked at his daughter in surprise, pulling away slightly as he said, _"Did you? That was kind of you, Mitsuki, but you did not have to-."

_Her eyes crinkled with her glee. "Yes I did! Stay right here; let me get it!"_

_She darted away, going over to her shoes and pulling out a small box she had stashed within one so the gift would not be discovered prematurely. The container was made of black felt, thin cardboard, with no symbols or names imprinted in gold or silver letterings to indicate the business it had come from. As Mitsuki held the present out to him, he slowly took it in his paws, carefully pulling the cover from the little box. His eyes widened as they rested on the piece within. Pulling the thin silver chain out first, he balanced the decorative piece with his fingertips. The smooth disk of sterling silver, the size of an average coin, was perfectly circular, and the crystal cradled within the metal appeared smooth and polished to a glassy hue. The gem had been manipulated to mirror the surface of the full moon, including having areas of shadow and snowy white marking the mars (or "seas" of the moon), the craters and their scars, and the plains of undisturbed white sands. It was - he knew from the pale blue color and its weight - an actual jewel, a Moon Stone cutting to be precise, the necessary divots creating the reflection of Luna filled with a thin coating of glass. Mitsuki explained that the necklace was a moon pendant, and that she'd thought it would be fitting for him to have, and then told him that it opened up into a locket. Indeed, as he pinched it lightly between his fingers on its side, there was a crease in the metal, and with his telekinesis he eased the fold open on its hinge. The spaces where two pictures could go were empty, the inner frontal surface gleaming with the pale gem, while the other could flip outwards, revealing a tiny cavity in which Mitsuki had placed a small curl of her hair. _

_Silently he clicked the locket together and flipped it over, finding a small engraving upon the back: the kanji character for "beloved." He smiled, feeling his heart constrict as he glanced to the picture of Anne, deciding to make a copy of that face and one from Mitsuki's photographs so he could place both of his females' images into the tiny metal frames. Subsequently he would be unable to wear the pendant during his hunts, for losing the piece was too great of a risk, but at all other times the pendant would remain wrapped about his necks. He looked into his daughter's face, her expression anxious as she waited to see how he would respond, and then he smiled at her._ "Thank you, dearest…it is a remarkable gift. Would you help me put it on? My fingertips are not nimble enough to manipulate the clasp."

_Mitsuki beamed and nodded happily, and as he turned around, she undid the chain and placed it about his necks. Her tiny fingers redid the clasp so the locket hung below the curve of his collarbone, the metal cool against his chest. Her father turned and hugged her firmly afterwards, touched by the gift, and asked,_ "How did you afford this, though? It could not have been cheap."

_She smiled coyly and explained, "I saved up the money you gave me, though that wasn't enough…but when Mrs. Hibiya saw that I wanted to buy it, she offered to pay half the price if I agreed to keep Cody and Tia out of her way while she cooked."_

_He grinned, amused by the concept and its resulting imagery._ "I daresay you received the better end of the deal."

_His daughter wrinkled her nose at him, contemplating the memory of the bargain. "Not according to Mrs. Hibiya."_

_The replica laughed, stroking her curly locks of her soft, cream-brown hair in a tender caress. How could someone as flawed as him be blessed with a child like her? Grateful to whatever higher power there was if a deity existed, he sighed contently as he inquired,_ "Now what precisely is the occasion? Why did you feel the need to buy me something as valuable as this pendant?"

_Mitsuki gave him a perplexed look, and blinked at him as she cried out, "Don't be silly, papa - it's September sixth! This is your birthday present from me!"_

_And smiling wider than before, she said, "Happy birthday!"_

_Her father stared at her in surprise…how had she known the significance of this day? He echoed the question of his thoughts aloud, and was told that Mrs. Hibiya had asked Mr. Watanabe and Ms. Sato if they knew the date after their last visit. The woman had remembered Anne Nakamura once lamenting the difficulty in finding a gift for her roommate for Christmas, openly declaring how glad she was that she would not need to worry about the matter again until next September (a month, he recalled with an inward shudder, she had not lived to see). Upon finding out the exact day, the neighbor had told Mitsuki, as the girl had expressed an interest in the matter after witnessing the birthday party thrown for Mr. Hibiya. Since that time the girl had intently searched for the perfect gift for her father, and had eventually found it in an antique shop. She had saved her allowance for purchasing the locket from that point on. It had been a long, slow process, and she had feared she wouldn't be able to raise enough money on time, but with Mrs. Hibiya's help she bought it when she'd gone out today. Mewtwo made a mental note to thank the woman, for Mitsuki reported this all with utter bliss, and he realized suddenly that the child seemed happiest when making him happy as well. Again, he marveled at the concept that he was blessed with such a darling girl, and embracing her again he whispered that he loved her gift. He was fifteen this year in body, though the number was skewed while in human form from necessity. Still, he had lived decade and a half, and much had occurred in those short years since his birth.... _

_Nuzzling his little one affectionately, he picked her up, deeming it time she was tucked into bed. He helped her dress in her pajamas and buried her under the blankets, hearing her squeal in delight as she tried to surface from the covers. She peeked out at him, grabbing his purple tail and allowing him to tug her from the sheets with it. Once they finished playing, he turned on her music box and kissed her forehead…she smelled of cinnamon, sweet and spicy. The father stayed with her until she wandered through the gates into the kingdom of Morpheus, watching her cuddle with her stuffed animals and hearing her murmur something about a "kitty" (he could scarcely believe he was going to buy her one, but he supposed a pet was something every child required, for responsibility training and a bane to loneliness), and then went into his own room. There he popped his willing joints first, stretched out his muscles, and as he curled into his covers, regulated his breathing; he had created the exercise to obtain restorative sleep. Now the clone added a new comfort to the procedure: he held the locket in a paw as he stared into the night outside the balcony window. The half-moon set slowly, and soon he too succumbed to dark, serene dreams; content dreams where Anne and Mitsuki played together, with the mother's vision restored so she could gaze upon the little one who was as much her love's as hers. His spirit self watched them with a smile, thinking that all was right with the world…and though not in the manner of his imaginings, someday it would be. _

_Over a month later, standing high atop the flagpole of a skyscraper, the wanderer watched the crescent moon rise, its light casting a ghostly hue over the capital and imbuing into his eyes white fire. It was time to begin the hunt. The pelt of the moonlight vigilante rippled silver as his muscles coiled before launching him into the ebony firmament, his cloak whipping around him in umber waves as he flew into the night. _

_There was work to be done._

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**Author's Note:** Well, first, congratulations to whoever made it to the end! I'm very impressed with that kind of dedication. If anything was unclear, I apologize; but the fic was written under the assumption that its readers have taken high school classes, and possess some basic knowledge concerning Japanese culture. True, I was not entirely accurate at parts, but the flaws were left in for a purpose. At any rate, if you guys aren't planning to listen to the rest of my rant, please, if you would be so kind, leave me a review!

Now onto the rant: obviously, the portrayal of Mewtwo in Moonlight Vigilante is far different from what I usually write (or what anyone else usually writes for that matter). Most of the time I portray him as a white knight, a polite male, or even something of an adolescent who doesn't know how to deal with the opposite sex or his emotions – and usually he is a pacifist unless driven to violence. In this fic, not so much: he is not a man in this fic – he is half of one, with the other half most certainly of a predatory, animal nature, being calculating and cold. As what he does to his prey indicates, he's brutal in cases, and at times even...snarky. Mostly, I did this to try to make him more realistic. Instead of a human in pokemon skin, he was a pokemon with human qualities. Furthermore, an in character Mewtwo is not the listed positive traits about…oh, he might defend others, and perhaps even grow attached, but beyond that he's far from noble, and not perfect. That's the issue with most Mewtwo fics: he has no flaws in personality and certainly not in body. I wanted to turn that idea on its head, and I rather like the effect it gave. Remember, he's a monster: he killed his creators without batting an eye at their murders, he destroyed facilities on a whim, he abducted and brainwashed a woman, and then forced countless individuals into amnesia for convenience. This is merely escalation of that foundation – after all, in this story he hadn't been around people for years, and anyone who isolates him or her self long enough will eventually lose their humanity and sanity. So he's become a demon fighter, as he was supposed to be, yet even for his violent tendencies, this by no means declares he cannot be redeemed. That is ultimately the goal of the story: for him to find a road to redemption, and just maybe, real happiness.

On a similar note, about the portrayal of Anne – there is also a rather annoying trend I've noticed about his potential loves interests. Most often these are, of course, female Mewtwo, and we all know why. However, if they are other species, notably human, there is usually something unusual about them. They might have psychic powers, an eccentric personality, or some dark past of abuse or concerning Team Rocket. I did not want to do that this time: I wanted a normal woman, albeit blind, as someone whom Mewtwo could take an interest in. Of course, Mewtwo doesn't usually take an interest in banal creatures, which was why I had to form a past encounter and subsequent changes in her outlook on life. However, many of us go through similar shifts in our perspectives, so I still believe her to be a more realistic interpretation of her role. At the very least, I know that her traits and behavior are derived from a real life source (though I did not consent with her choice, by god. I do not write self-inserts for a reason…when fangirls do that, it pisses me off…).

Anyhow, this story has multiple sources of inspiration I'm certain some of you might recognize: primarily, the Marvel Comics movies Daredevil, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight. The philosophies presented in those films fed many in this story. In addition, there were some nods to various other medias, including The X-Files, Full Moon wo Sagashite, and Full Metal Alchemist. Last are three fanfiction works that boosted my imagination for aspects of this story, including Forgotten by Melora Maxwell, Sword and Shield by Kayasuri-N, and The Incomplete Soul Saga by Miyuutsuu. I highly suggest reading their works when you have the chance. I would also like to mention and thank the following websites: _Wikipedia_ (for reaffirming my anatomy and genetics lessons), _Google_ (for the various little things I had to look up), _Time and Date_ (for all the moon phases), _Narconon Drug Rehab for Abuse and Addiction_ (for the drug withdrawal information), _Behind the Name – the Etymology and History of First Names_ (for helping me figure out what I was going to call everyone besides Anne, whose name I knew from the start). They were of immense help with research, which is the key to writing a good story, and can be very amusing if you're into it.

Also, while most of my beliefs concerning Mewtwo and Mew are accurate to this fic, there is one inconsistency that I have to acknowledge: I do not believe that Mew is female. Yes, I have portrayed her as such before now; and in this story too since I needed to give Mitsuki a "surrogate mother"…but considering the themes in Mewtwo Strikes Back, I believe the pokemon is a male. Other than that, many of the theories I stated in the story follow my beliefs: concerning the design of Mewtwo body (both its strengths and weaknesses, as stated in the guidebooks), the empathic imprinting that makes his behavior so human-like (because honestly, Amber could not have taught him everything he knew…especially not how to talk), and his sexuality (by the way, I apologize to any homosexual readers if they were offended by something I wrote). On a note to explain the breeding theory, which I will use in other works: I take the idea that Mew is the ancestor of all pokemon to a literal extent. As the creatures can transform into any being, it seems only natural to me that a few would get a little frisky while out of natural form – considering what humans will sometimes do, that idea can't downright be shot down. Plus, in case no one else has noticed this, the pokemon races are rather compatible with one another. This suggests a communally similar chromosome count, which often occurs if the species in question have common ancestors (avian races, in particular, are prone to mixing genes). That was what I was attempted to get at with the myth…and as for Mew not being a cat, look at sharks and dolphins, and again you will see what I meant.

Finally, I had three main experiments I wanted to try in this story: 1.) writing a blind love interest; 2.) having the main character being an abuser of drugs; and 3.) having the antagonists as the equivalent of Nazis. Such were my curiosities, and they fit together surprisingly well in this story. The fanfiction flowed well, was removed from my usual teenage audience, and affected me in emotional ways that I've never truly experienced before with a story: gratification after a satisfying fight or scientific musing; elation after the love scene; sorrow keen enough to make me cry when Anne died (a necessity, but one that killed me to write); and even a bit of fear at the creepy and slightly insane thoughts of the protagonist; and more. There were vulgar parts and poetic parts, and in all, this has been one of my favorite projects to work on. I hope I've succeeded in providing the Mewtwo fandom a strong story that its members can appreciate. I am pleased with it thoroughly.

At any rate, thank you for reading. See ya' later!

Sincerely,

WiseAbsol


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